


A Not-So-Hollow-Knight

by FreakOfYourNature



Category: Hollow Knight (Video Games)
Genre: And Kick Them In The Metaphorical Balls, But MC Says Fuck That, Do Not Repost My Shit Without My Express Permission, Female MC - Freeform, Gen, Herrah Is Awesome, I only post to AO3, It's Magic - I Ain't Gotta Explain Shit, Lots of references to other fandoms, MC Gets Isekai'd, MC Is Chaotic Good, MC Swears A Lot, MC gets reincarnated as the Hollow Knight, MC is a Meme Queen, OC/SI - Insert, POV Female Character, She Wants To Speak To The Manager, The Pale King Being an Asshole (Hollow Knight), The Vessels Are Genderless, gender is a social construct, if you see my stories anywhere else, lots of swearing, no beta - we die like men, please let me know if my shit was reposted, they were stolen, update schedule? never heard of her
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-17
Updated: 2020-12-09
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:27:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 21
Words: 95,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27601391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FreakOfYourNature/pseuds/FreakOfYourNature
Summary: Her brilliant plan was as follows:1. Hide right up against the wall next to the door out of the Abyss so the Pale Bellend didn’t see her immediately.2. When he walked through the door, waste no time in hitting him in the back of the head, or the back of whatever she could reach with her club to stun him and give her more time to enact step 3.3. Run like hell, and pray that getting unexpectedly whacked in the back of the head stunned him long enough for her to make a clean getaway, since he would presumably be coming down here alone.4. Make good use of her intangibility to escape and haul ass to the Resting Grounds as fast as possible, putting all her ninja skills to good use in avoiding detection from basically everyone, since she could trust basically no one to not rat her out if the king put a bounty on her head or some shit like that.She operated under the KISS method of planning. It was an acronym that stood for ‘Keep It Simple, Stupid.’But then again, no plan survived contact with the enemy.This was going to suck, wasn't it?
Comments: 277
Kudos: 511





	1. I Want to Speak to the Manager!

**Author's Note:**

> So, I had a crazy dream and that birthed this fic. It's sort of similar to certain aspects of my other story 'The Black Spirit' but also different in a lot of ways. This whole thing is experimental and also has no outline so we'll see how it goes :)

She floated in warm darkness. Everything was calm and comfortable. There was no pain. She finally, blessedly, free of pain. About damn time. Honestly, she just had the shittest luck. Looked both ways before crossing the street and everything, no cars around at all, so she crossed the street and got hit by a car that came outta nowhere. Such unbelievable  _ bullshit. _

Then, the bastard didn’t even have the decency to stop or call her an ambulance. He did a hit-and-run. What an asshole. She lay on the cold ground for way too fucking long before she finally died. It had been agonizing, struggling to breath through a ribcage that would no longer expand, panicking as she drowned in her own blood. Unconsciousness had been a blessing from the heavens.

Speaking of which, is that where she was? It definitely lacked the puffy clouds and singing angels that she had pictured, but it was comfortable and dark and warm, so she wasn’t exactly complaining. She’d been raised a Christian, and while she hadn’t gone to church as much as she probably should’ve, and probably liked swearing way too much, she didn’t think she’d done anything to deserve damnation forever. 

Was this purgatory, then? Maybe. It certainly wasn’t paradise, but it also definitely wasn’t hell, either. Hmmm, whatever, no use angsting about it now. For once her anxiety was blissfully silent. No pounding in her chest or buzzing in her mind telling her to move, move, move! She went back to sleep. She idly wondered if she’d ever wake back up again. She let the thought go. It didn’t matter.

* * *

When she woke up again, it was still dark and warm, but now it felt confining. Something was yelling at her to thrash and move, but she shoved the feeling down. It was probably just her anxiety acting up again. Even in death she couldn’t escape it, huh? That felt like some bullshit, but if she was actually in purgatory like she thought, then she supposed some bad things had to happen to her to balance out the nice quiet she’d had earlier, right?

Honestly, though, why was she freaking out about being in a confined space? She didn’t have claustrophobia, she had the opposite, she had agoraphobia, which was the fear of wide open spaces. Being gently pressed in on like this should have felt comforting, and to part of her, it totally was.

There was just this little voiceless voice telling her that she couldn’t stay here, she had to move and thrash and escape.

The more she tried to ignore it, the louder and more insistent it got. 

_ Jeez, okay, fucking fine stupid voice, I’ll do it already, just shut the fuck up! _

She thrashed as much as she could, and then realized that she still had limbs. How she hadn’t noticed before now, she didn’t know. She could be super selectively observant sometimes. 

Like, she noticed a slight water puddle no bigger than a quarter on the floor of her apartment near the corner of her fridge once, which had actually been a super leaky water line for the icemaker and it had almost caused some serious water damage, luckily she’d caught it in time, but then she’d failed to notice that her parents had painted the previously dark brown ceiling a bright white, for like, a week.

She felt like this was one of those times. She tried to move her limbs around as much as she could, but they felt off, like, really off. They were way too fucking short for one, and also pathetically weak.

Oh, please no. Nononono, this had better not be what she thought it was! She’d throw a fit if it was! She’d channel the bitchiest inner Karen she could! She’d demand to speak to the manager and everything! While she had always tried her hardest to avoid being the stereotypical entitled white girl, she’d make the biggest fucking exception for this, if she was right.

She threw all her energy into flailing around, trying to stand up, punching at the walls, everything. The punching actually seemed to be doing something, so she did more of that. A few frantic punches in, and she broke through the wall and tumbled out, ass over teakettle, onto the cold, hard floor.  _ Ow. _

She tried to inhale, and promptly choked on mucus. She coughed out a couple of times and tried not to panic about how similar this whole thing felt to when she had been lying on the cold, hard pavement, choking on her own blood and dying in a gutter like a stray dog.

Her airways soon cleared though, and she shivered and sucked in as much air as she could. Something was wrong. Very, very wrong. People do not breathe in through their sides!

_ Whatthefuckwhatthefuck! _

She tried to pull herself to her feet, and she almost ate shit by falling directly onto her face. She was way too top heavy! It felt like being what she imagined being a bobblehead felt like. She stumbled but managed to stay upright. 

_ I mean, I was sorta stacked before, but this feels like all the weight’s on top of my head, not my chest! _

She brought her hands up to feel her face and started screaming internally, because she couldn’t actually make any noise with her mouth, probably due to her not having one anymore.

She sucked more panicked breaths through her sides, before ruthlessly clamping down on her rising panic. She didn’t have her rescue meds with her, she could not afford to pass out right now! 

_ Okay, distractions! _

_ Priorities, priorities are good! _

Numero uno: Find out what the fuck was wrong with her body.

Number two: Find out where the fuck she was.

Number three: Find out why the fuck this was happening or whoever the bastard was that had done this to her, and kick him right in the balls, or wherever would hurt most if they weren’t a dude.

Okay, okay, weird side breathing now under control, find a reflective surface, or lacking that, a self exploration with her tiny hands. She looked around, eventually turning around and finding what it was she had escaped from. It was a giant, shiny, black egg.

Yep, definitely bitching to the manager. Full-entitled-white-person-style.

She’d clearly died and been isekai’d off to places unknown.  _ Such _ bullshit. Well, hopefully it was a place where she had some insider knowledge she could totally use to cheat with. Fuck playing by the rules, this was her life now, and if whatever ROB son of a bitch that did this to her didn’t like it, then they should’ve performed a memory-wipe beforehand, men-in-black style.

In the game of life, if you weren’t winning,  _ you clearly weren’t cheating hard enough. _ The world had rules, why not use those rules to your advantage, malicious-compliance style?

That was the policy she lived her life by, and she wasn’t about to stop now.

_ Right, reflections. _

The egg seemed pretty shiny on the outside, maybe she could use that?

She walked around behind it, trying not to fall over, and when she finally got a good look at her new body, she mentally swore a blue streak that would have made her sailor dad proud.

A roundish white mask, two relatively large, straight horns with a prong on the inside, like a beetle’s mandibles. She knew those horns, intimately. 

She had been isekai’d as the Hollow Knight, the Pure Vessel.

_ FFFFUUUUUU….!! _


	2. (And Then Kick Him In The Balls)

She had sat down and screamed her fury mentally for a good few minutes before she calmed down. 

Now that she thought about it, she wasn’t really a ‘she’ anymore was she? Looking around and deeming the coast clear, she carefully tried checking between her legs, carefully watching her new claws so she didn’t scratch herself.

Yep, nothing there. She hadn’t really expected anything, though. In the games, Hornet had been referred to as ‘The Gendered Child’ before she was named Hornet, so clearly the Vessels were supposed to be thought of as genderless, since Hornet apparently being gendered was significant enough to earn a title over.

Well, fuck that. Sex organs or no, she still thought of herself as female, so that’s what she’d be. Fuck gender, it was all a social construct anyway. The only time genitals really mattered was if you wanted to have biological children with somebody, and there were even workarounds for that now too, at least back in her original dimension.

People would probably mis-gender the hell of her now, though, which would suck. If they even thought of her as alive in the first place. Vessels weren’t supposed to be living things, according to the Pale Asshat, anyway.

Speaking of which, where were the other Vessels? There wasn’t a mass baby grave anywhere she could see, the Abyss was actually pretty barren right now, actually. Well, except for the masses of other black eggs everywhere, mostly clustered near the Void Sea. Ah, she just answered her own question.

The world of Hollow Knight was a pretty shit one to end up isekai’d into, all things considered, but it could be worse. A lot worse. At least she knew what was coming.

She had poured hundreds of hours into the game, she loved it. Every bit of it. She’d watched lore videos and come up with her own theories, watched Youtubers play through it, she’d hunted down every last secret, and then she tried speed running the game and installing crazy mods as she counted down the days till Silksong came out.

Fuck, now she’d never get to play it! She pouted before moving on. She had much bigger problems now, mainly the Pale Douchebag and the Absolute Bitch. She was sure as shit not becoming the Pure Vessel, or the Hollow Knight, no sir, hard pass on that one.

Her first main problem was escaping this pit alive. Her acting skills were terrible so she’d definitely fail at pretending to be hollow, but she could be an emotional ninja when she wanted to. She was actually a pretty good liar when she had adequate warning, thanks to her years of emotional trauma, yay!

Her parents were great, she loved them to bits and would mourn like hell when she wasn’t compartmentalizing like a motherfucker anymore. But her brother. God. Her brother was the single most self-centered, obnoxious, lazy, inconsiderate asshole she’d ever had the displeasure of knowing!

He treated their parents, the people she loved above all others, like absolute shit. That, more than anything else, made her hate him. For years he would constantly lie, cheat and wiggle around any perfectly reasonable expectations, responsibilities, or rules they set, and then blame everyone else for his problems and misfortunes. He adamantly refused to grow up in any way, shape, or form, expecting her parents to take care of him forever.

Her poor parents. Dad was a military man and was deployed overseas a lot, leaving Mom to parent the both of them by herself for a lot of their younger years. Mom worked her fingers to the bone as a highly regarded professor and assistant Dean at the local college, and then had to come home and deal with her brother, the poor woman.

Around the time she entered highschool was when things really started to fall apart. Her brother was failing in grade school, and his tantrums had grown in frequency and violence. He’d smash and break things while screaming about how mistreated he was, because he got his electronics taken away for three days for sneaking them during class instead of taking notes.

She’d come home from school and hide in her room with her expensive noise-cancelling headphones, the one truly expensive indulgence she allowed herself. She’d put them on and hide in her closet while her brother threw a fit and her mother tried to stop him.

Then she’d wake up and go to school and pretend everything was fine. She did her homework and chores without a single complaint, trying to make her parent’s lives even the smallest bit easier while they tried and usually failed to wrangle their hellspawn of a son.

Everything was perfectly fine and manageable, right up until it wasn’t. She remembers one day sitting down to take a math test she’d been dreading for a week, only to wake up sitting in a wheelchair placed in front of a big hospital window, holding a carton of chocolate milk and watching the gorgeous sunset.

It was so beautiful she cried. Her mom came running over to see if she was alright and she just had a complete breakdown right then and there. Apparently she’d gone catatonic in her chair in the math classroom, shaking with pupils blown wide and not responding to anyone or anything, aside from when she flung herself out of the wheelchair onto the floor to avoid a nurse coming at her with a needle to check her blood sugar, since she also had hypoglycemia.

She fucking hated needles so, so much. She had to be drugged up to go get her vaccinations usually, or she’d panic and try and punch the poor nurse in the face or something.

Anyway, that’s how her parents found out she had anxiety and depression and panic attacks and forced her to go see a therapist and take meds. It helped so much. She stopped having dissociative episodes and was more engaged with life, but still had minor freakouts when she heard her parents and brother having a fight, which was basically every night.

It had gotten to the point that her parents were going to force him to go to military school, so that other people who were not emotionally attached to him could beat his ass into shape. He’d almost been eighteen, just a few more months and the three of them would have been free of him for a good long while.

She wondered how much time had passed back home, and if he’d gotten shipped off yet. God, she hoped so. Her parents didn’t need to deal with his self-centered bullshit after they found out she was dead. She hoped they were able to move on okay. God, she missed them both so much.

_ No! Now’s not the time for tears! Bitch, pull yourself together and figure out what you’re gonna do! Planning now, crying later! _

She lightly smacked at her face to get herself to focus, and was abruptly reminded of her predicament when her tiny clawed fingers hit bone instead of soft skin.

Okay, planning time. Presumably the kingdom didn’t start completely going to shit until after the Hollow Knight was sealed, which gave her some time. She didn’t know how much time exactly, but a year or two at least, the Hollow Knight was tall as fuck compared to most of the other characters, so they presumably grew up somehow, even though the Knight character never did.

She’d have to escape when the king came to choose his Pure Vessel, since even the Team Cherry devs had said they had no idea how the Knight escaped the Abyss after the door was sealed, only that they somehow did.

That left her a very, very small window of time to get out the door without the Pale Shithead killing her for being impure. She had a lot of headcanons regarding the game, almost everyone did, since so little lore was outright explained. Mostly it was alluded to or revealed by environmental storytelling and small pieces of character dialogue.

One of her strongest headcanons though, involved the birthplace memory sequence you see when you tried to get the ‘true’ ending. In the game, the Knight doesn’t take fall damage, ever, at any point in the game. They also survived the fall when they lost their grip on the platform in the memory, so she knew the whole ‘no fall damage’ wasn’t just a game mechanic.

But, you also saw many falling Vessel corpses while you made the climb. They hit the ground and don’t get up, meaning they were already dead before they hit the ground. 

Now, a few probably got hit by spikes or something, but surely not all of them, there were too many. Some had to have made it to the top, but when you get there in the memory, the Hollow Knight is the only one there, along with the Pale Asshole himself.

Now, she wasn’t always the sharpest tool in the shed, but even she could add two and two together and come up with the answer of ‘The Pale Forkhead killed all the impure Vessels who made it to the top.’ 

_ Father of the Year, everyone. _

Now, she didn’t know if that was even accurate, or if this universe was the canon Hollow Knight one, or if it was a different, nicer version, but until she found proof one way or the other, she was going to operate under several assumptions for her own safety.

1\. The Pale Dickwad would kill her if he thought she was an impure Vessel if he caught her.

2\. She would not just magically respawn on a bench if she got got by one of the umpteen million threats to her life in this god-forsaken hell dimension, so Steel Soul Mode it was.

3\. If she did manage to escape the Abyss, the Pale Shithead would send his knights or some kingsmolds or fucking  _ something _ after her ass to kill her to preserve the secret that there was more than one Vessel ever made.

4\. If she didn’t somehow find the Godseeker and kill the Absolute Radiance at the end of the fifth pantheon, everyone was fucked, including herself.

God, that was a lot of pressure. 

Okay, she also had no idea if the Seer was around yet, so the whereabouts of the Dreamnail were currently unknown. Perfect. While she could always just hide out somewhere and wait for the timelines to match up so she knew where everything was, shit would still be fucked because  _ she was the motherfucking Hollow Knight! _

She was not getting locked up in a temple for an undetermined but still probably hella long time with an angry moth god in her head. She was keeping her freedom and both of her arms, dammit!

She had no idea how badly her not being the actual Hollow Knight would fuck things up, but she didn’t have a choice if she wanted to have any chance at life. Maybe the Knight character would actually make it to the top and be chosen by the Pale Douchecanoe in her place? Honestly that was probably the best-case scenario for her. 

She felt bad for all of the Vessels that would inevitably die or otherwise suffer, but she couldn’t save them and still escape at the same time. She also had no desire to be a big sister again, no fucking way in hell. There wasn’t enough money in the world. 

Sure most of them were probably perfectly nice, but all it would take was for one of them to be a total douche and remind her of her brother, and she couldn’t handle being responsible for someone like that again, she’d commit fratricide to spare her own sanity.

She felt bad, but she wasn’t a miracle worker, and no one could care for however many thousands of Vessels that were actually made. There were sprawling catacombs made of Vessel skulls in the game! There had to be thousands, minimum!

She was not going to be joining them.

Not a chance in hell.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so i wasn't exactly in a great headspace when i wrote this. i was steaming mad because this character is actually based off of me, but some other stuff is made up. the family stuff isn't though. thats basically 100% accurate. my brother a massive douchecanoe and treats everyone else like shit. he's the center of the universe, and no one else matters, because fuck other people, apparently. hes selfish, self-centered, lazy, and a million other horrible qualities i could spend all year listing. 
> 
> he was especially asshole-ish to my parents today, and i had to leave before i punched him. im generally a really laid back and non-confrontational person when it comes to interacting with other people, but not with him. its like some primal switch in my brain gets flipped on when he starts treating my parents like shit. i've heard it called the cain instinct. they work their asses off to give him chance after chance, opportunity after opportunity, and he just pisses all over them.
> 
> He's always been this way. its only ever gotten worse over time, and he's almost eighteen, so my parents are waiting for the day he graduates highschool, and then shipping his ass off to military school, thank god. it seriously sucks guys. he gets violent sometimes, but usually my dad is around to stop it, but he's broken and smashed so much stuff, especially electronics.
> 
> my parents have tried taking them all away before, but he's gotten being an obnoxious asshole down to an art form. he might as well be the next da vinci in that department, and my parents eventually give them back just to get him to fuck off for 10 minutes
> 
> sorry for the rant, you guys came to read a story, not listen to my bullshit


	3. Yer A Wizard, Girlie!

She was currently the only Vessel in the Abyss, but there were a multitude of eggs lining the shore of the Void Sea. The Sea was completely calm when she approached, and the lighthouse wasn’t even on. 

She kept to the shadows around it though, she didn’t know if there was anyone inside who would report her existence back to the Pale Fuckwit, so best to play it safe and assume there was.

She saw new eggs get pushed up unto the gray sands out of the Sea every so often though, moving other eggs out of the way. Guess the Vessels were still being created. She noticed her own egg was much, much smaller than all the others, clearly only big enough for one Vessel inside.

Did that mean all the larger ones contained multiple? She guessed she was just special because of her being isekai’d or something. She was a bit confused as to why the Void Sea was totally calm, and strangely soothing to be around, and then it hit her.

In the games, you never actually got back into the Abyss until you had the King’s Brand, which was a magical sigil and probably felt like the Pale Assface or was otherwise tainted by his magical fingerprint or something. The Void hated and was hostile to the Knight after they got it, but calmed down again once you got the Void Heart.

Made sense to her at least. She needed to paddle across the Sea though, because the Shade Cloak was on the other side, and she needed it. Finding out that the little blueish cloak the Vessels wore was actually an organic growth and part of her body was a bit freaky. It grew out from the base of her short neck in an almost-complete ring. It had a little gap in the front, across where her throat would be, if she’d still had one.

She’d then conducted a few little experiments. Turns out the cloaks were sort of like a fingernail, in that cutting or damaging the hem of it didn’t feel like anything or cause pain, but tear it a little too high up, and it stung like the world’s worst hangnail that had been torn off the wrong way.

_Yeesh, so avoid getting that too damaged, then. That tiny cut stings like a bitch!_

She didn’t know if the cloak would repair itself or regrow, but she hoped it was like hair or fingernails in that regard, where they grew continuously and needed occasional trimming. That way any damage would eventually be repaired over time.

She made her way across the expanse of liquid Void, easily floating on top of it and trying to be as quiet as possible. No need to alert the guard with loud splashing, if there was a guard. Turns out that while she did breath through small slits in her side near where her ribcage was, she didn’t actually need to, or she could just hold her breath for such a hella long time that it might as well have been the same thing.

She eventually found the little cave entrance and made her way through the tiny tunnels. The Void pools there were still as well, allowing her to pass even without the ability to dash. 

She found the massive skeleton holding up the bowl to be much more intimidating in real life, though. Void dripped in little rivulets from the ceiling, falling into the bowl and running out little channels in the sides. She clambered her way up into it, and waited. She hoped she didn’t actually need the Mothwing Cloak to get the Shade Cloak, or she’d have to rethink a bunch of her plans.

The Shade Cloak was what opened up a lot of end-game areas, and if she wanted to get the ‘Embrace the Void’ ending, then she needed it!

Thankfully, it appeared as though she didn’t need the Mothwing Cloak, and Void rose up and blinded her for an instant before she could see again. She felt something cold settle into the pit of her stomach before the feeling faded away. Or had she just grown accustomed to it?

She wasn’t quite sure how to activate it, so she tried mentally pulling at the little ball of Void in her stomach. Void rose up and covered her for an instant before it was gone again. It took a couple of seconds for the little ball of Void to settle before she could draw on it again.

Cool, now to see if she could dash with it. She drew on it and threw herself over the edge of the bowl...and fell flat on her face. _Ow._

She tried a few different combinations of movements, but no dice. Guess all it did was make her intangible for a split second, which was still useful, but not quite what she wanted.

She wondered if the effect could be lengthened if she trained it enough. She hoped so. Needing to find artifacts and upgrades to make any sort of progress would be infuriating. She wanted to actually be able to wield a Nail with skill and grace, not just be limited to one basic slash attack or three Nail Arts.

Her fighting skills were currently minimal. Her human dad had taught her how to box, just a bit, but that was pretty much it. She knew how to throw a punch for maximum effect without breaking anything, and she could bob and weave like a motherfucker, but actual fighting skills? 

She’d only ever practiced against a dummy, and had only ever been actually punched a couple of times when she tried intervening during one of her brother’s bitch-fits. God, he was such a prick, but one of the few upsides of her current situation was that she never had to deal with him or see his acne-ridden face ever again! Silver linings!

She paddled back across the Sea and began exploring, activating her Shade Cloak as often as she could, just in case practice did actually help improve her skills. It didn’t make her move any faster, but it probably made her harder to spot in the darkness of the Abyss, at least.

The floor was a lot more uneven and difficult to traverse due to the extra space left by virtue of the pit not yet being a mass baby-grave. She eventually made it to the other side and found the room where you could upgrade the Howling Wraiths spell into the Abyss Shriek spell. She wanted it. 

She always played as a bit more of a spell-caster than a Nail-user, and hoped that the magic system of Hollow Knight had more complexity than three basic directional spells. Judging by all the crazy shit the other bosses seemed to have access to, she hoped she could get her grubby little mitts on some of that sweet-sweet magic hax bullshit, too.

Who needed a sword when you could magically bitch-slap someone across the face from half a room away with a spell instead? Despite her views on magic trumping melee combat, she still didn’t want to only be able to barely flail a Nail around either. 

Mana was limited, but Nail was forever. Or something like that. Point is, she wanted to be a somewhat balanced and capable fighter with a preference for spells when it was practical to do so.

She puttered around in the spell-upgrade room for a bit, trying to scream and failing.

_I have no mouth, yet I must scream. Heh, never thought that particular meme would ever actually apply to my life so literally._

She loved memes, and vines, and stupid internet videos, and was sad she’d never get to make dumb references and jokes with her coworkers again. Stupid ROB. He was probably the one who’d magically made that car appear and run her over, too. Bastard. She resolved to kick him in the metaphorical nuts if she ever got half the chance.

* * *

With none of the other eggs being hatched, and no signs of life from the lighthouse, she got to work hiding in the little canyon and trying to mess with Soul. She’d discovered that she had it after she tripped and fell, tearing her cloak because she kept forgetting about how fucking tall her horns were!

It was a pretty big tear, too, which hurt like hell. She sat curled up in a ball, holding her cloak and wishing she could stick it in her mouth to try and soothe it, but she didn’t have a fucking mouth anymore! 

_Fuck you, Pale Douchebag! No voice to cry out suffering my ass!_

She rocked back and forth a bit and watched as small amounts of Void beaded on the edges of the tear. She held the edges together, maybe it would scab up and heal?

She wanted the pain to be gone, she hated pain! Pain sucked ass! 

_Yes, thank you body, I am well aware I have been injured and shit is damaged and I shouldn’t use it for a while, I don’t need a constant reminder!_

She wished she could Focus her Soul and heal like in the games, but there was no B button in real life.

Except maybe there was, because the second she started thinking about how she should be able to heal, she knew it was possible, she’d done it a bazillion times in-game, she felt something in her stir.

It rose up and filled her with a lovely warmth that contrasted nicely with her naturally colder body temperature now, and the tear in her cloak mended itself like, well, magic!

_Holy shit on a stick, I actually did magic! This is so fucking cool!_

She then immediately tried to do it again, but nothing happened. Maybe because she wasn’t injured?

She loathed the idea of having to hurt herself to find out if the effect could be replicated, but she had to know.

She braced herself for the pain and used her sharp little baby claws to tear another rip into her cloak.

_Fuuuuuck! That hurts! Owowowow!_

She tried to focus on the warmth again, and again it answered her call, mending the rip and taking away the pain.

_Yes!_

And then she was slapped across the face with a wave of tiredness and dizziness.

_Ohhh...so that’s what happens when you run out of Soul._

Then she passed out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lol the MC is basically never going to call anyone she hates by their actual names. its a thing with her if she gives you constant nicknames, she either loves you or hates you. if she uses your actual name its cause either she doesnt have strong feelings about you, or she really respects you.


	4. The Great Escape

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's tiiiime! :D more references!

She woke up groggily.

_ Well that fucking sucked. Note to self: don’t do that again. _

She wondered about how to make that happen. She didn’t know how to gauge how much magic go-go juice she had left in the tank. There was no handy-dandy little meter that told her, so she’d have to find out how to know how much she had left, because she could not risk passing out in the middle of a fight.

If she couldn’t figure out a way to do that, then it was a Nail-only challenge for her, which sounded awful and unnecessarily difficult.

Maybe there was something to all those people that said that meditation was the key to looking inside yourself or some shit. She could try meditating and seeing if she could figure out how much Soul she had that way?

Welp, she had nothing but time, so she may as well get started.

* * *

She tried focusing on the still-weird sensation of breathing through her sides, and tried to clear her mind, and see the warmth inside of herself.

She had no idea how much time had passed. She didn’t seem to actually need to eat or sleep, so her sense of time was all shot to hell, but whatever. If she spent a week meditating to find her Soul, then she spent a week meditating to find her Soul.

Thankfully, it probably didn’t take a week before she felt something. Like the little ball of Void in her stomach, it was a little ball of Soul in her chest, gently pulsing and calm. As she watched it, it seemed to grow a little...denser, perhaps?

That was probably her Soul refilling over time, but it seemed a slow process. The Void ball stayed the same, inert in her stomach for now. She tried swirling it around a bit, and found it to be much easier than doing anything with the Soul ball.

Made sense, since she was a Void creature now, so Void manipulation was probably supposed to feel natural. She recalled the Pure Vessel being able to turn one of their arms into flailing Void tendrils and then form them back into an arm, so could she do that too, now?

She hoped she could, being able to shapeshift even a little sounded badass!

She brought herself out of meditation and wondered how long it had been. A few hours minimum, probably. She held out her tiny, pudgy baby hands tipped with claws even sharper than baby human fingernails, if such a thing was even possible.

She had four fingers total now, three true fingers and one opposable thumb. She was pleased at the odd number of fingers, for it meant she could now truly give assholes the middle finger!

She fell over, giggling in her mind, uproariously amused by the thought. She may have been shit at learning new languages, but she did know how to swear in several of them. Truly, the first words anyone should learn in a new language were the swears, followed by how to ask for the bathroom.

Like that one quote from ‘The Christmas Story,’ her dad worked with profanity the way other artists worked with clay, and she had followed in his footsteps, much to her mom’s dismay. 

She shook off the sudden melancholy brought on by thinking of her parents, and tried to see if she could tell how much Soul she had left in the metaphorical tank. She was surprised to see it only took a few minutes of feeling for the ball of Soul in her chest. It seemed low, but not dangerously so, but she’d still refrain from trying to Focus again for right now.

She looked at her pudgy baby hands and clenched them as hard as she could. These hands would slay gods one day, or she would die trying. She stood up and began climbing out of the canyon. 

She had spotted the inexplicably floating platforms earlier, but had avoided them, not wanting to potentially injure herself. Now that she had a reliable way to heal however, she felt she could start doing things that were a little riskier.

She needed to know if she took fall damage first. She scrambled her way up a few platforms, looking down on a drop that would cause her human legs to ache, but not actually injure them.

She sat on the edge of the platform with her legs dangling over the edge. Her legs were weird now, too. They looked like they were tipped with things that looked like a cross between insect claws and cloven hooves, and her legs were digitigrade, like a dog’s or a cat’s were.

She could probably kick way harder now that she didn’t have to worry about breaking a bunch of little bones in her feet if she hit something too hard or at an awkward angle. Her body was still covered in soft flesh, no chitin plates to speak of, which is how she knew she still had bones at all, actually. 

She could feel them in her hands when she pressed on them, and wondered if she’d develop plates later, and what would happen to her bones if she did, since insects had exoskeletons that supported their forms and not internal bones like people did.

Maybe the bugs of Hallownest had both? It would explain how they could be so tall then. Exoskeletons weren't typically found on larger, more complex animals for a reason, and that reason was the square-cube law.

A creature with a chitin exoskeleton could only grow so large before they collapsed under their own weight. Mammals could get much larger because bones were much stronger than chitin and could support way more weight.

Anyway, she hoped her bones were made of calcium and just as strong as they were when she’d been a human, and that she wasn’t about to totally break her legs trying this.

_ Yeet! _

She threw herself from the platform, legs first, and landed on the ground with a quiet thud. A shock reverberated up her legs, but it was just a vibration, and there wasn’t any pain in the slightest. She looked up and spotted the platform she jumped from.

Yep, she’d have definitely felt that in the morning if she’d been a human.

Just to make sure, she climbed up to an even higher platform and dropped down from that one too, only for the same thing to happen. She’d have definitely broken  _ something _ if she tried that as a human, so she guessed that confirmed the whole ‘no fall damage’ thing. Well, so long as she landed on her feet anyways.

Then, she decided to try and make the entire climb. She wanted to know that shit forwards and backwards. Hallownest was bound to have even harder platforming, so she needed to be a parkour master if she wanted to survive past Greenpath.

There were less spikes than she was expecting, and no shadow creepers. Huh, go figure. The climb wasn’t even all that hard. She looked down, and she couldn’t see the bottom of the Abyss.

The final platform that held the door was just above her. She easily leapt up. The metal of the railing-free balcony clanged beneath her little hoof-claws. The door was closed, as she expected.

She pushed against it out of curiosity, but they wouldn’t budge, not that she was expecting anything different. She’d have to make her escape when the Pale Bastard showed up to massacre the other Vessels.

_ That’s gonna be a right bitch isn’t it?  _

* * *

It was indeed, a right bitch. She had trained as best she could for what felt like weeks before she’d had to stop, due to someone descending into the Abyss and turning on the lighthouse. She’d hidden herself then, making sure to stay out of sight.

Soon after that, mere days maybe, all the eggs on the shore of the Void Sea hatched damn-near simultaneously. She had scrambled to the top of the Abyss when that had happened, hoping that the sounds and chaos hid the sounds of her panicked ascent. 

The eggs hatching that in-sync must have been planned out or something, surely the Pale Fucker was coming here soon, and the first steps of her brilliant master plan would commence.

She had practiced running all over the place, as fast as she could, for as long as she could, because once she made her daring escape, she’d have to put as much distance between herself and the White Palace as possible. So, running like hell was definitely on the training regimen. 

Thankfully, her Vessel body seemed to be able to go forever without taking breaks, so she focused on speed and agility.

She’d also taken to carrying the heaviest rocks she could find and lift on her back, to train her strength. It seemed to work, since the rocks became easier to lift every day.

She planned to go to the Resting Grounds to check if the Seer was there, and totally steal the Dreamnail if they wouldn’t give it up. That thing was absolutely vital to the plan. The entire thing was fucked without it, really.

_ I swear to god, if I get my tiny, adorable ass all the way up there, only for them to not be there, imma lose my shit! _

The other thing she had trained was her intangibility. Thankfully, practice did actually help extend the time she could hold onto it without losing it. She could now be intangible for up to several seconds at a time, though the recharge time suffered a bit for it. 

Not a ton, but it definitely took an additional second to recharge if she was intangible for an extended period. Fortunately, the ratio was definitely not one to one for that, so she was confident that she could get the recharge time to cool down faster with more practice.

If intangibility was the only trick she could do, she’d be the best goddamned one-trick pony to ever exist. Like those anime protagonists who trained the shit out of one skill and were able to overcome all its shortcomings by using it in creative and unexpected ways!

She had figured out a little bit of Void manipulation, too. It was both easier and harder than she expected. All she could reliably do at the moment was make a mass of Void tendrils emerge from her back and thrash around wildly.

It wasn’t very useful as a combat technique, but it sure looked intimidating as all hell, especially when she paired it with the one noise she figured out how to make. It was a high pitched screeching noise that grated on the ears and sounded absolutely awful. She had figured that out after trying to McGuyver a voice for herself by vibrating her little Void body to make sound. Sound was just wiggly air after all, and she thought that if she could modulate her vibrations just right, she might be able to make herself a voice. 

It was hellishly difficult and progress was near non-existent, so she tabled the voice idea for now. She had other priorities.

She’d managed to break off a lone spike and dulled the edges by rubbing it with a rock so she didn’t cut herself, which took several Focuses to heal when she inevitably fucked up and stabbed herself. She held it by the skinnier end, so it was a bit like a club. Oh, the things she planned to do with that club…!

Her brilliant plan was as follows:

1\. Hide right up against the wall next to the door out of the Abyss so the Pale Bellend didn’t see her immediately.

2\. When he walked through the door, waste no time in hitting him in the back of the head, or the back of whatever she could reach with her club to stun him and give her more time to enact step 3.

3\. Run like hell, and pray that getting unexpectedly whacked in the back of the head stunned him long enough for her to make a clean getaway, since he would presumably be coming down here alone.

4\. Make good use of her intangibility to escape and haul ass to the Resting Grounds as fast as possible, putting all her ninja skills to good use in avoiding detection from basically everyone, since she could trust basically no one to not rat her out if the king put a bounty on her head or some shit like that.

She operated under the KISS method of planning. It was an acronym that stood for ‘Keep It Simple, Stupid.’

No plan survives contact with the enemy, and she had no idea if simply smacking him with an improvised club would even hurt him, but smacking a dream goddess in a dream of her own making hurt her, so she had no idea what kinds of rules truly applied when it came to Higher Beings.

Even if it didn’t hurt him, what she really wanted it to do was surprise him long enough for her to book it without him impaling her on a light-spear like the Radiant Bitch and the Pure Vessel could make.

She didn’t know how long it would take for him to even show up, but she was not leaving this fucking platform and potentially blowing her one chance at escape. She stood pressed against the wall, club held in steady hands that didn’t sweat. 

Her new body definitely had its perks, and not displaying most of the human signs of nervousness was only one of them.

* * *

She had no idea how long she stood there, but she could hear the shuffling of thousands of bodies below her, and splashing coming from the direction of the Void Sea. She ignored the little voice that told her she was leaving all those innocent babies to die, but there was nothing she could do.

Then, the door groaned before it dissolved away in a flash of light. She pressed herself into the wall and raised her trusty club.

The Pale King himself strode through the door, completely oblivious to her presence. He seemed to have legs like hers, but also had a long tail too. It stuck out of his robes a bit and a new idea bloomed in her mind.

She brought the club down on the tail,  _ hard. _

The Pale Asshole screeched in pain and surprise, whipping around just in time for her club to catch him square across the jaw in an absolutely vicious right hook maneuver using her club, sending him to the floor in a heap of flailing limbs and pained screeching.

_ Hah! I’ve still got it! _

She whipped around, activated intangibility and ran like hell. 

_ Speed! I am speed! Gotta go fast!  _

She resisted the urge to look back, knowing that was how all the horror movie/game characters either died or got themselves into even deeper shit.

She dropped her intangibility when she could hold it no longer, skidding around a corner and launching herself up platforms much higher than she could normally jump to, her panic lending her metaphorical wings. Her club stuck to her back like the Knight’s Nail did, leaving her arms free to aid in her escape.

Her tiny claws dug into near-invisible cracks in the walls and she was out of the Ancient Basin like a bat outta hell. She realized as she was running that she had no feasible way to get to the Resting Grounds with her current set of abilities, until she remembered the Stagways.

Yes, if she barged into them, she was likely to get run over by a speeding Stag, but she could turn intangible! 

_ Change of plans! Road safety laws, prepare to be ignored! _

She swung to the right, making for the Palace Grounds, the absolute last place she really wanted to be, but just on the other side of it was a Stagway.

_ Fuck it, whoever sees me won’t be able to stop me! Have fun explaining my existence, Pale Assface! _

She tore across the expansive stone courtyard in front of the Palace, going intangible to go right through whoever got in her way, screeching like a banshee the entire time.

_ Move, bitch, get out the way! God, why are there so many people just hanging out in front of the Palace?! _

People, bugs, actually, screamed as she approached. She stopped for no man, even if they were in her way. Curiously, no one actually tried to stop her, she glanced to the side and saw the Three Dreamers standing near each other, with the White Lady standing off to the side, looking very startled, the Five Great Knights surrounding her in a protective formation.

_ Fuck you too, White Bitch! You helped! _

She screeched louder at the glowing tree and used her free hand to flip the White Bitch the bird as she ran by. She had no idea if these bugs had a local equivalent of if they even knew what such a gesture was supposed to mean,  _ but holy fuck did it make her feel good! _

She Shadow Dashed right through a pair of kingsmolds guarding the entrance to the Stagways, right through the startled Stag, and raced down the tunnels, still at her top speed, which was quite impressive, if she did say so herself.

_ Gas, gas, gas, gotta step on the gas! _

No one followed her and she howled in victory in her own mind, as well as out loud. Her triumphant screams echoes down the tunnels in a horrible echoing cacophony. She just laughed in her mind, high on her victory. She’d done it! 

She didn’t stop running though, she still had to find the Resting Grounds. Thankfully, she was obsessed enough with the games to remember what the map of the Stagways looked like in her mind. 

She followed those mental directions, dashing through speeding Stags left and right, who didn’t even seem to see her most of the time. Perfect.

Next stop, Resting Grounds!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lol can you just imagine just vibin in front of the white palace, waiting for the king to come back with the supposed solution to the plague, only for this tiny eldritch monstrosity to come literally screaming around a corner and making a bee-line for the tunnels only stags are supposed to traverse for very good reasons and totally ignoring everyone and everything else except when it makes a weird hand gesture at the queen no one understands, and then the king comes back with another tiny eldritch monstrosity, except this one is much better behaved and is like 
> 
> PK: yes, this will save the kingdom.
> 
> Everyone else: but sire, what about the other one? whats wrong with it?
> 
> PK: ...that one was a prototype


	5. In Which The Radiance Gets Mentally Scarred For Life

The Pale King, ruler of Hallownest, prepared himself. He’d gotten the magical alert that all the eggs had hatched, right on schedule. It was time to fetch his perfect, Pure Vessel from the masses of failures. He would train it to prime form and save his kingdom.

_ No cost too great. _

He could only take one. He had everyone waiting back in the Palace courtyard, prepared to see him triumphantly return with the kingdom’s salvation.

He straightened his robes, even though no one would be around to see him. The Pure Vessel wouldn’t care either, because it would be Pure of all thought or emotion.

He flared power to the King’s Brand upon his chest, and the sealed door to the Abyss opened. He straightened his back and walked regally through the door, and then his tail flared with a not inconsiderable amount of pain.

He let out a most unseemly screech in pain and surprise, and whipped around to see what had hurt him. He only had time to register two Void-black eyes before pain exploded in his face. 

He heard a sickening crack, and realized it was his own mask. The pain was blinding and he fell to the floor, legs and injured tail tangling together in his complicated layered robes.

When he looked back down the tunnel he’d arrive from, his blurry, watery eyes only caught a glimpse of his attacker before it vanished around a corner, moving very fast indeed.

It was a Vessel.

_ A Vessel had escaped the Abyss. _

A Vessel had attacked him, incapacitated him temporarily with a  _ club _ of all things, and then made its escape while he was still too stunned to react.

That Vessel was certainly not Pure, but it was  _ smart _ , and that was definitely worse.

He had half a mind to chase it down and kill it, but if he left now, more Vessels might escape while he was off chasing that one down, and he’d have no idea how many might escape while his back was turned. 

Best to limit the number of escapees to just the one.

He healed his tail with a burst of Focused Soul, but his mask was a trickier matter. He channeled Soul into it to heal it, but while the pieces and cracks would fuse together, he’d have to molt if he wanted the blemishes to vanish, which he certainly did.

He applied a minor glamour to disguise the marks, and warily made his way back to the edge of the Abyss, now much more alert for further sneak-attacks.

He sent out the mental call that would compel the Vessels to try and reach him. He wondered if the Vessel that escaped would be called back. Probably not. If it was capable of that much independent thought, then none of the other compulsory commands he’d programmed into the Vessels would work either.

Those commands had mostly been experimental anyway. He’s not that surprised that they failed to take on at least one Vessel. There would probably be more that would ignore the call, but it didn’t matter because those Vessels wouldn’t meet the criteria anyways.

So, he sent out the call and waited. It didn’t take very long for the first Vessels to appear. They were all impure though, he could tell. They reached out for him as if asking for a hug. He swatted them all away and watched dispassionately as their bodies fell back into the pit that had stolen away his children and spat back monstrosities.

The Vessels were not his children, not anymore. They belonged to the Void now, and he had no use for another’s spawn that couldn’t help him contain the Radiance. His Wyrm instincts demanded that he kill all the rival spawn that were not his own, that didn’t belong in his brood, and he would happily oblige.

He only needed one.

* * *

It didn’t take her long to realize she was hopelessly lost in the Stagways. Her mental map was useless, it seemed. The real Stagways were much more complicated than the game made them seem. She should have anticipated this, really.

She continued running, dodging the occasional Stag. Though she could not grow physically tired, she could grow mentally tired, still. After probably hours of wandering lost in the Stagways and not encountering a single Stag Station, she was ready to scream. She only refrained because she didn’t want to give away her position.

She needed a break. Thankfully, she spotted a small part of the tunnel that seemed to have collapsed, creating a small tunnel that led into a small chamber, only a few feet in diameter, but enough room to stand up in.

A little bolt-hole, just her size! The Stags wouldn’t be able to reach her here, and neither would anyone else. Though she didn’t need sleep, she could still do it. Weeks of constant training and preparing, and hardly a moment of rest. Her body was strong, but her mind was weary.

She fell asleep quickly.

* * *

She awoke in a place she recognized immediately.

_ Oh, fuckshit. This is the Dream Realm, which means… _

She whipped around, and there was the Radiance, in all her sickly orange, fluffy glory.

“Oh, hello there, small child, what is it you desire? You must simply worship and remember me, and I will make all your dreams come true.”

The Radiance was probably trying to sound motherly or something, but she already had a mom, and she certainly didn’t look like that!

“Oh, I see, you miss your family. Well dearie, I can bring them back here for you, if you wish. You can be with them all you want, you must simply give me your devotion. Worship me as your god, and you can see your family as much as you want.”

Was the Radiance reading her mind? Why was she not remarking about how strange her parents must have looked? Mammals didn’t seem to exist in game, so what gives? 

Either way, she didn’t believe that fluffy lantern as far as she could throw her. Agreeing to worship her probably let her into your body, like agreeing to a demonic possession.

Also, there was only one God, and He certainly didn’t look like that, either!

Well, there was one way to find out if the Radiance was really reading her mind.

She promptly thought of every cursed image she’d ever seen in as much detail as she could. All the 3am Tumblr posts, all the gross porn she’d accidentally stumbled across on her forays into the internet, every horrible human atrocity she could think of. But mostly gross porn.

All at once.

The Radiance flinched back like she’d been slapped, shrieking with disgust.

It had worked! 

_ “Ahahahaha!! Now you will suffer as I have, moth bitch! SUFFER!” _

She laughed maniacally, not realizing that she had a voice in the Dream Realm in her glee. The Radiance waved a wing and disappeared.

“Begone from my domain, you foul, perverse creature!”

Then she got booted out of the Dream Realm and back into her own body. 

* * *

She shot upright, wheezing with laughter. Her sides heaved, laboriously sucking in air in great heaving gasps.

That was  _ definitely _ in the top ten greatest moments of her entire life, right behind smacking the Pale Dickwad in the face with her club hard enough to crack his dumb, idiot face!

_ This is why you never read a human’s mind, you overgrown lamp! We nasty! Ahahaha!! _

She shook with silent laughter for quite a while after that. The Radiance was a moth god of light and dreams, figures she’d be a massive prude, too. She hadn’t even busted out the really gross memories yet!

She worked as a custodian all throughout college, and she’d  _ seen _ some shit, okay? College dorms were nasty, in more ways than one. She shivered at remembering the Great Condom Disaster of 2020.  _ That _ had been  _ nasty.  _ 2020 had truly been a shitshow of epic proportions.

Now newly invigorated by successfully causing the Radiance mental anguish, she exited her little hole, and ran onwards.

She’d get her ass to the Resting Grounds if she had to commit highway robbery and hold up a Stag at club-point to get directions.

_ Don’t test me bitch, because I won’t hesitate! _

* * *

Eventually, by some miracle, she found an exit. An empty Stag Station, perfect. She scrambled up onto the platform and tried to figure out which one she was at. Looking around, she saw massive cobwebs everywhere. The Hidden Village Station.

_ Fucknuggets, I’m in Deepnest! Shit! Wait a minute...that means…  _

_ I.  _ _ Went. The. Wrong. FUCKING. Direction. _

_ FFFFFUUUUUU…! _

“Now, what do we have here? Lost, little city bug?” A smooth, dangerous voice said, from directly behind her.

It was Herrah.

Double fuck. Triple fuck. That’s it. She was so fucking dead they’d have to come up with a new word to describe how utterly fucked she was.

Whelp, if she was gonna die, she’d go down swinging!

She retrieved her club from her back, started flailing her tendrils in a threat display that just felt right, and let loose with the most intimidating, ear-piercing shriek she could manage, while staring Herrah right in her middle pair of eyes.

Herrah didn’t move, so neither did she. In fact, she got the impression that Herrah was raising a metaphorical eyebrow at her. Herrah probably thought she was pathetic, like a tiny Chihuahua challenging a Great Dane. The size comparison was accurate, too. She was tiny compared to Herrah!

“Ah, it seems I was mistaken, you’re no city bug, are you?”

That brought her up short. Herrah was…not hostile? What? She quieted down and recalled her tendrils, but didn’t put her club away or lower her stance. She readied her intangibility, prepared to dash back into the Stagways the second Herrah lunged for her. She was curious, not stupid.

But for now, she answered the most likely rhetorical question. Nodding and shaking her head was one of the few methods of communication open to her still.

She shook her head. Even in her old life, she was no city girl. Her parents lived a fair ways outside of town, in the woods. It was quiet, and she often enjoyed going shooting with her dad at the completely illegal and unsanctioned firing range everyone went to on the side of this one hill out in the countryside.

Only locals knew about it and going there was always so much fun. While her human body was pathetic, give her a rifle and she’d Annie Oakly someone’s ass from just about any distance you cared to name. Her vision was fantastic and her aim was even better. It had been a point of pride for her, but sadly, guns didn’t exist in Hallownest, unless you modded one in.

“Hmm, no, definitely not. You seem like a wild thing. What were you doing in the Stagways? You don’t look happy to be here,” Herrah said smoothly.

Well, that wasn’t exactly a yes or no question, so, charades it was. 

She patted at her throat and shook her head, before letting out a quiet screech.

“Oh? No voice either? Such a curious thing you are,” Herrah said, peering deeply at her, “You haven’t taken a breath since I started talking. You’re not really a bug, are you?”

She tensed up, raising her club higher and edging backwards toward the Stagway, ready to run if things went South. She shook her head twice.

“No, I thought not. You’re one of those Vessels the Wyrm was going on about, yes? You’re the one from the other day, the one that caused such chaos at the gathering in front of the Palace. He said that he’d only made a few, and that you were an escaped failure,” Herrah said.

She felt offended. She wasn’t a failure! She was the only one to get out of that hell pit alive! The Pale Douchecanoe could kiss her ass, she’d walloped him real good and then skedaddled while he lay on the ground like a bitch! 

She carefully put her club away but stayed alert. She made a motion like she was writing on paper, and Herrah figured it out almost immediately, the smart woman.

“Yes, I suppose words would be useful. Charades can only get one so far. I cannot allow an outsider into my lands. You shall wait here for me to return. Attempt to follow me and perish.”

She nodded rapidly. She had no desire to set one toe into Deepnest, and especially not if the Spider Queen didn’t want her there.

Herrah turned and left. She sat down and waited.

* * *

Herrah soon returned with a roll of what looked like a cross between silk and paper, a small pot of ink, and a feather quill. She didn’t know how to use a quill. Shit. Wait, where did the feathers even come from? Hallownest didn’t have birds!

“So, who are you, and what are you doing in my lands?”

She set the silk-paper on the floor and hesitantly grabbed the quill, before giving it another look and flipping it around and dipping the fluffy feather part in the ink. She didn’t know how to use a quill, but she’d had a bit of an artistic streak in her old life, so she definitely knew how to use a brush. 

A single feather wasn’t ideal, but she’d make do, like she’d been doing ever since she woke up in that god-forsaken pit.

She didn’t know if the written language was English, but she doubted it. The bugs spoke in a strange hissing, clicking language, but she could somehow still understand it just fine. She didn’t know if her magic ROB given All-Speak would work on the written word, but she tried anyway.

It came out as plain English, so she resorted to drawing pictures. The first set depicted the Abyss with all the other siblings crowded into it, with her hidden at the top, near the door, with her club. 

Then she drew a second picture showing her smacking the pale king in the tail, and then the face before running away while he cried exaggeratedly in pain, in a comic-style action sequence.

The pictures were just quick sketches, so she kept them simple. It looked like a big storyboard actually. That gave her an idea. She began storyboarding her entire adventure so far, including her encounter with the Radiance, ending with their meeting Herrah in Deepnest.

Thankfully Herrah seemed patient and was willing to wait for her to finish. She used up almost the entire roll of silk-paper, and nearly ran out of ink.

She passed the long storyboard off to Herrah to look at, hoping she managed to explain everything well enough.

Herrah looked over the first drawing carefully, before moving onto the second one where she barked out a laugh, presumably upon seeing her less-than-flattering depiction of the Pale Shithead and her subsequent escape through the courtyard and into the Stagways.

Herrah went very quiet upon seeing her drawings of the Radiance in her dream, before she quickly scanned over the rest of the drawings before looking back at her.

“These pictures tell a very interesting story. But I must clarify some things first. Did you really assault the Pale Wyrm with that club?”

She nodded proudly, puffing up in pride of one of her greatest accomplishments to date.

Herrah laughed loudly, “Well, I’d certainly let you into Deepnest for that alone, but just a few more questions. This picture here,” Herrah pointed at the Radiance, who she’d drawn with arrows pointing to drawings of infected bugs and Dream Essence in an attempt to make Herrah realize the two were linked, “Is this what’s causing the infection? This moth... _ thing?” _

Yes, yes! Herrah was getting it now! Figures the Pale Asshole would hoard all the information to himself and leave everyone else in the dark, even his allies.

She nodded rapidly and motioned for the paper back. Herrah gave it, and she used the last of the ink and paper to sketch out a few pictures of the Radiance being worshipped before her worshippers had been stolen away by the Pale Hoarder, and then the Radiance being mad and infecting things.

Herrah took the paper back and scanned it over, seeming to become angry. Good, anger was good. 

_ Yes...let the hate flow through you…! _

“You mean to tell me, the infection, all this suffering, is because of a spat between gods over worshipers?” Herrah said very quietly.

More rapid nodding. She couldn’t help but do a little victory dance. Hopefully she had an ally now, one who hated the Pale Dickwad nearly as much as she did, and was powerful enough to protect her from his wrath.

Herrah then seemed to calm, “And why should I believe you?”

She stopped dancing.

_ Shitfuck. _ How was she supposed to explain this in picture form?! She couldn’t tell Herrah that she came from a whole different dimension where Hallownest had been a video game! So, now she had to lie, or at least twist the truth a bit, so Herrah would believe her and not kill her.

She motioned for more paper and ink, and Herrah seemed to realize that she’d used it all.

“Wait here. Do. Not. Leave.”

She promptly planted her ass on the floor. Nope, she wasn’t going anywhere, no siree! 

Herrah returned even quicker this time, with several rolls of paper and more bottles of ink.

_ This is going to take a while, isn’t it? _

* * *

It did indeed take several hours, and many yes and no questions, with a few charades thrown in for good measure, and a metric shit ton of drawings. Her fingers felt like they should’ve cramped up by now, but she was just as fresh physically as she’d been hours ago.

It was just her brain that was tired.

She and Herrah had eventually moved into her meeting room because it was more comfortable, and Herrah was still a mortal bug that needed food and water. Her guards were terrifying, but she kept her mind focused on the task at hand. Her life likely depended on it, and there was no better motivator than imminent mortal peril, so.

She’d eventually managed to communicate that she’d inherited a limited version of her ‘sire’s’ foresight, but that it had been corrupted by the Void. Instead of the potential near futures, it showed a complete story of many years in the future where events played out slightly differently, but certain facts that she’d learned, like the cause of the infection, remained the same.

She’d explained her desire for combat training and also why she needed the Dreamnail so badly.

Herrah was now also exhausted. She called for a recess until tomorrow, and let her stay in one of the guest quarters Herrah had for important political visitors, apparently Hive Queen Vespa came over for tea sometimes. The Hive and Deepnest had a thriving alliance, currently.

She decided to give sleep another go, wondering if the Radiance would try and talk to her again.

She slept a dreamless sleep.

She woke up the next day and mentally smirked.

_ That’s right, bitch, fear me. I shall become death, devourer of worlds, and yours is the first one on the menu. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yay, MC's making friends! powerful friends! they can trash talk PK together and everything! and have girl talk! loool i cant wait for MC and Herrah friendship!
> 
> also radiance is totally confused and off crying in the corner because what the fuck has she just witnessed? she doesn't know but it was gross and horrible and she's not touching that weird creature using her powers ever again. 
> 
> turns out the best way to prevent getting your mind infected by the radiance is to just make it so that she never wants to be in your mind in the first place :D


	6. Two Peas In A Pod

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yay new chappie! more worldbuilding and lore in deepnest!

Herrah’s guards came to collect her in the morning and they led her back to the meeting room. All her drawings had been sorted in some kind of manner, but she couldn’t tell what it was.

Herrah was seated on one end of the table, and she motioned for her to take a seat across from her.

She did so, and Herrah leaned on the elbows of her topmost pair of arms and steepled her fingers. She tried not to fidget. Deepnest respected two things. Strength and skill.

Herrah had the most of both, which made sense, seeing as how she was Queen and all. She idly wondered if there had ever been a king ruling at her side, but then she remembered that most spiders ate their mates, and then resolved to not think about it.

“So. You have given Deepnest much valuable information. Much of the information has been verified as true, which means you are most likely not lying about the cause of the infection.”

She nodded once, then tilted her horned head to the side, trying to convey a sense of confusion. Where was Herrah going with this?

“The Wyrm claims you to be a failed experiment, and after your...jaunt through the Palace courtyard a few days ago, he explained away your existence as a prototype Vessel that had managed to escape containment. A large bounty was placed on your head, whether or not it was still attached to the rest of you.”

_ Motherfucker! I knew it! That bastard! _

She tensed, getting ready to Shadow Dash out of there if the situation got hairy. She’d take any amount of Dirtcarvers or Garpedes over having to fight the Spider Queen.

Herrah clearly noticed her tenseness and continued, “Neither I or my people are the Wyrm’s lackeys. You have given us a valuable advantage, one that he doesn’t know we have. It would be foolish of me to betray what might otherwise be a valuable ally. 

You clearly have no lost love for the Wyrm. We have that in common, and you know what they say about the enemy of my enemy. As long as you abide by our laws and give aid when I or my people require it of you, you are welcome to stay here for as long as you need.”

Yes! This was exactly what she needed! 

_ Herrah, I love you! You’re so much cooler than the game makes you seem! _

“I’m guessing by your reaction that you wish to stay?”

She nodded rapidly.

“Well, then I officially welcome you to Deepnest. I doubt the Wyrm bestowed you a name. Do you have anything you would like us to call you?”

That brought her up short. She then realized that she couldn’t actually remember her name.

_ Fuck you so hard, ROB.  _

Her selectively observant dumbass strikes again. Well, what did she want to be called?

She put a pudgy hand to her chin area and adopted a thinking pose. Better make this quick, she didn’t want to keep Herrah waiting.

What do Hallownest names look like? They seemed to mostly be adjectives or objects like Cloth, Sly, or Divine, but they could also be more normal, like Cornifer, Iselda or Quirrel.

She gave it some thought, and then had a dilemma over how she was going to get the message across when she didn’t know how to write in the local language.

Well, Hornet was a badass, but she didn’t know if she’d been born yet, and she didn’t want to accidentally steal her thunder, so she drew a picture of what the bug had looked like in her world, but standing upright. Hopefully that was close enough for Herrah to understand.

She also drew a quick sketch of a bunch of female Hallownest characters in a line, and then put a picture of herself at the end of it, along with drawing the symbol for ‘Female’ above all their heads. She didn’t know if the symbol would be understood, so she drew more pictures of male characters and used the symbol for ‘Male’ as a comparison.

She slid the paper over and Herrah looked at it for a moment, “I’m going to try and get this right, and you just let me know if I’ve figured it out. You are female?”

Well, she didn’t want to lie exactly, so she settled for shaking her head and then nodding.

“Ah, I see. You are genderless like the other Vessel the Wyrm showed off a few days ago, but you wish to be referred to as female?”

Rapid nodding.

“Very well then. As for your name, you wish to be called Wasp?”

Even more rapid nodding.

She sketched out a picture of Hornet kicking ass, with herself off in the corner looking at Hornet with stars in her eyes. Hornet was a grade-A, USDA certified, motherfucking badass, and Wasp wanted to be even a fraction as cool as her. They say imitation is the highest form of flattery, after all.

Herrah looked closely at the drawing and huffed a small laugh, “Ah, you wish to be like someone you admire. Understandable.”

* * *

They spent several more minutes hashing things out. Wasp sketched out the bare-bone basics of her plan. Firstly, they needed a Dreamnail ASAP. Then Wasp needed some serious training. Then, she’d find the Godseeker and kick all the ass, saving everyone. 

If they couldn’t find the Godseeker in time, she’d resort to trying to find an alternate way into the Dream Realm to confront the ultimate lamp.

Since she was now basically confined to Deepnest until the whole ‘bounty on her head’ bullshit was dealt with, she’d be learning how to use a Needle instead of a Nail, but that was fine with her. Herrah sent out some of her swiftest scouts to try and track down the Seer in lieu of Wasp going herself.

She really just wanted some form of melee weapon, and a Needle would work just fine. Herrah refused to let her learn how to weave, which sucked but was understandable. She was just a guest, not actually a Deepnest citizen, and weaving was basically a sacred art in Deepnest, so Wasp let the matter go easily.

You don’t fuck with someone’s religion or customs if you wanted to stay on their good side.

It took a few charades for Herrah to realize she just wanted some form, any form of magical or mundane Hallownestian education though, and Herrah agreed to let her join the classes that were taught to grubs.

She needed to learn the written language at the very least, if only to make communicating less of a pain in the ass for everyone involved.

Seeing how her current body was basically a grub’s, she thought she’d blend in relatively well.

She was just wary because she’d never had good experiences with human children. She refused to have kids of her own after being forced to live with her shithead of a brother. 

If her kid turned out like that, she wouldn’t be able to handle it, so she just made sure that kids weren’t ever a possibility for her, and she’d gotten her tubes tied as soon as humanly possible.

A lot of doctors were hesitant to perform such a surgery on a young woman, who everyone thought would change her mind about kids later and then have regrets. ‘Oh, it’s different when it’s your own kid’ they’d all say, and then refuse to do the operation. 

Bitch, that’s exactly the problem! If she wanted a kid, she’d go down to the nearest government office and adopt one, after she determined that their base personality wasn’t permanently set to ‘asshole’!

Thankfully, she’d finally found a female surgeon in the private sector who was just as disgruntled about kids as she was who was willing to perform the operation. Her insurance wouldn’t cover it though, for the same ‘oh you’re young though, what if you change your mind?’ bullshit reasons.

So she’d scrimped and saved like a motherfucker, pinching pennies for almost two years before she had enough, and then paid the doc upfront, in cash. The look on the receptionist's face when she came stomping back into the office two years later, slammed a briefcase full of cash on the desk, and demanded that her reproductive abilities be taken away was nothing short of glorious.

_ The surgery? Thousands of dollars. _

_ Everyone’s reactions? Priceless. _

_ The safety and security of knowing there would never be the possibility of an ‘oops’ baby? Also absolutely fucking priceless. _

Her parents were disappointed that they’d probably never get grandkids, but all it took was another tantrum from her brother, and her singular raised eyebrow for them to understand.

* * *

Wasp was excited for the first day of bug school. She just hoped it wasn’t like human school, with its shitty cliques and bullies, and endless amounts of busywork that didn’t actually teach her anything.

It was a bit startling to learn that her class was the  _ only _ class, though. Nobody wanted to have kids when the world was going to shit, so the class size was tiny, less than ten grubs, including her.

It was also startling to learn that compared to most grubs, she was basically muscular as all fuck. Yeah, she wasn’t pudgy like the Michelin Man, but she didn’t think she was that strong or fast!

Holy shit was she wrong. The reason nobody really mistook her for a baby bug so far was because she was apparently way, way too fit and mobile, so most people thought she was just a really strange species of short, sort of childish-looking bug.

It would be like passing a bodybuilder with an unfortunate case of baby-face on the street that was the size of a kid. You wouldn’t think they were actually a kid, just that they were vertically challenged or maybe suffered from dwarfism.

She was like that one cursed medieval painting of baby Jesus, that one where the artist clearly had no idea what an actual baby looked like, and so the baby Jesus in that painting was jacked as fuck. Seriously, muscular babies looked horrifying. Guess she was also mildly horrifying to look at now, too. Oh well, +5 to her intimidation skill, then.

Regular grubs were indeed, very pudgy and not very mobile. Oh, they could walk and run, just not with any amount of real speed or grace. Weaver grubs, called weaverlings fittingly enough, had better mobility than most other grub species, but they were also extra pudgy.  


Wasp was doing parkour and lifting enormous rocks not a week after she hatched, so clearly Vessel anatomy was very different from a real grub’s. Whatever, that just meant no one would be able to push her around on the playground.

She would attend lessons and do the homework, if there was any, and try and be polite but not overly friendly with anyone. That was the plan anyway.

That plan was immediately kicked to the curb the second she spotted the fucking cutest thing she’d ever seen in her life.

_ Oh. My. God. Baby Hornet!! Holy shit, she was already around this early? Whatever, doesn’t matter! Baby Hornet! YESSSS! _

She had to resist the very strong urge to just glomp the tiny bab. Herrah was there, dropping her off presumably, and she totally noticed Wasp having a breakdown over in the corner.

Again, she got the feeling that Herrah was smirking at her or something. She totally knew who Wasp named herself after. Not a lot of bugs had horns like Wasp, and she and Hornet definitely shared a bit of family resemblance.

Oops. Well, whatever. Herrah now knew her daughter was going to grow up to be a badass, and she was probably proud, like any decent parent would be.

* * *

The class was taught by Midwife, who was actually super gentle and nice, but was also strict and kept order the entire time. She immediately liked Wasp because she planted her ass at her seat and was a very attentive student, and didn’t cause any trouble.

The rest of the grubs including Hornet were wiggly, hyper little things, but a stern glare from Midwife usually made them behave.

On the lesson plan that day was the Hallownest equivalent of ABC’s, which was fine with Wasp, since that was what she wanted to learn most of all anyways.

Thankfully, their writing system was also phonetic and not symbol-based like traditional Chinese or Japanese writing was. Memorizing thousands of symbols so she could read street signs and have basic conversations with people sounded like actual hell. Hard pass on that one, thanks.

Thank god for small mercies.

Her memory was shit when it came to other languages. She took three years of Spanish in highschool and didn’t remember a lick of any of it. 

The noises the language used were not very human compatible, she found out. A human would never be able to speak the language, which was apparently called Arach. There was a variant spoken in the rest of Hallownest called High Paleian, but it was more like a different dialect than a whole different language.

She’d have wrinkled her nose if she’d still had one when she found that out. The Pale Egomaniac just had to slap his branding all over everything, didn’t he? Asshole.

Anyways, Arach had a lot more hissing and clicking, and High Paleian was more buzzy and chirpy. The writing system was apparently completely the same, it just differed on how some things were spelled or pronounced.

Made sense to her, considering what species of bugs lived in each place, mainly. Also she was learning basic etiquette and manners during her classes, which was also fantastic. She had a big thing regarding respect. 

She was always, always respectful to people, didn’t matter who you were, right up until you were a rude asshole for no reason, and then all bets were off.

A bad day she could understand, but screaming at the waiter because he got your order wrong? Distinctly Not Okay. She always watched her language around new people too. 

If she started swearing around someone, it meant she was comfortable with them. Though she understood that not everybody was as chill about cursing as she was, so she’d try to remember to watch her tongue if she knew somebody didn’t like it.

But she was mad polite to people in positions of authority, especially ones she respected like Herrah. She was so glad to learn that she hadn’t accidentally committed any kind of social faux pas so far.

She was kinda bad at reading tone sometimes, and she sucked ass at detecting subtle sarcasm. It had to be really obvious or she’d think it was serious. That had caused a few disasters back home.

Not being able to read a bug’s body language was a pain in the ass too. Everyone either had a mostly immobile face or wore a completely immobile mask, and all their body language was totally alien. So, all she could rely on was the voice, which was the part she sucked the most at!

Thankfully, children don’t have any of that social grace yet, so unless you called someone names or pushed them, pretty much all social blunders went unnoticed.

They had lessons for a few ‘regular’ hours at a time before there was an approximately thirty minute break to let the grubs play and work off excess energy. Bugs didn’t tell time in quite the same ways, which was a trip and a half to get used to. 

They used base ten for everything. Money, time, things like that. So, there were a hundred seconds to a minute, a hundred minutes to an hour, and ten hours in a ‘day’.

‘Years’ were a hundred days, so most bugs' ages didn’t match up to how Wasp was used to, and she had to do some mental math to actually figure out how long stuff was.

Being underground constantly also means no one gives a rat’s ass about revolutions of the sun, seasons, or anything related to the sky. Also, turns out there wasn’t really a sun or moon either. 

The sky was just a constant uniform gray, so Wasp didn’t know if they were even on a spherical planet now, or if it was more like how Asgard was depicted in the Marvel movies, or some kind of endless Minecraft world like or something like that.

Bugs were not like humans. They did not have an innate need to explore and discover everything. They had their home, and that was good enough for them, so other kingdoms rarely ever interacted with each other, unless they happened to be particularly close.

The wastes separated everything, and had the curious effect of making bugs lose their memories if they traveled in it long enough, so that also made sense as to why no one was going on expeditions or discovering new lands.

Anyways, one ‘Hallownest’ hour was more like 2.75 ‘regular’ hours as she understood it, if she’d done the math right.

So, grubs got a break about three hours into the lesson to play and then eat lunch, and then returned for about three more hours before going home, which meant that the school day was just a bit shorter than she was used to, which was awesome.

Anyway, she and the other grubs, Hornet included, got led to the sort of playground area that was mostly a bunch of suspended webs and some more solid constructions of stone on the ground. The pit was lined with sand, so it actually looked pretty much like the average human jungle gym.

The weaverlings all rushed to climb in the webs but she noticed that Hornet didn’t join them. She walked over to try and ‘ask’ why, since it really looked like she wanted to play with them.

She walked over and tapped Hornet on the shoulder of her bright red cloak.

Hornet turned around, not looking too happy to talk to her, which hurt her feelings a little bit. She wanted Hornet to like her, and maybe even be friends with her.

“Whadda you want?” Hornet asked, sounding annoyed. She had only the slightest bit of toddler lisp, since it seemed like bugs mastered speech much quicker than human children did. Grubs grew really fast for the first couple of ‘regular’ years of their life before slowing down.

Wasp began a short game of charades where she pointed to the group of frolicking weaverlings, then at Hornet, and then back at the weaverlings before tilting her head in confusion.

“Huh? You wanna know why I’m not playin’ with them?” Hornet asked. Then she crossed her arms and turned away from Wasp, “It’s cause I’m not a real spider, and I can’t climb the webs like they can! I don’t have enough legs!” Then Hornet started to sniffle like she was going to cry.

_ Shitshitshit! Oh fuck, please don’t cry, I didn’t mean to make you sad, Hornet! Herrah will murder me if she finds out I made Hornet cry! Crap, how do I fix this?! _

Then a lightbulb flicked on in her head. Hornet was sad because she wasn’t like the other kids, which was a common problem with human children too. The solution was a friend who was just like them, and Wasp certainly wasn’t a spider either!

She reached out and grabbed both of Hornet’s hands in hers before spreading them out wide.

“What’re you doin’?” Hornet asked, still a bit sniffly.

Wasp shook their joined hands a little and stomped her two legs, trying to showcase her similar lack of additional limbs.

“Huh?” Hornet’s attention was drawn to Wasp’s moving limbs, and then she looked at her chest area, under her arms, and noticed that Wasp had the same number of arms and legs as her.

“You don’t have eight legs either!” Hornet cried out happily, “You’re like me! Nobody else in Deepnest is like me! Where’d you come from?” She asked excitedly.

Wasp did her best to communicate the idea of ‘far away’. Hornet was a smart cookie just like her mother though, and she got it right away.

“Oh, you’re not from Deepnest? Are you just visiting?” She asked.

And so the game of questions and charades continued for the rest of the break period. Hornet continued to chatter at her, and Wasp was happy to try and answer all her questions.

Hornet’s mind had been blown when they all sat down to eat lunch and it was revealed that Wasp didn’t need to eat, and in fact had no mouth with which to eat food, even if she wanted to.

“But what about all the tasty things?” then Hornet gasped in horror, “Does that mean that you’ve never had a honey bun?!”

Wasp shook her head, and then Hornet looked heartbroken, like that was the worst news she’d ever heard.

“That’s terrible! Honey buns are the greatest things ever!” And Hornet continued on about how great food was, and Wasp was sad then, because she wanted to be able to try all the things Hornet was talking about, but she couldn’t.

_ Fuck you so much, Pale Dickhead. I wish I’d hit you harder! Not having a mouth is the literal worst! _

The lessons eventually resumed, and Wasp was happy to discover that there was no homework in bug school, at least not yet at any rate. Wasp was free to go to any public space she pleased without supervision, since she wasn’t really a grub, but while she could’ve gone back to her little guest suite by herself, she decided to wait with Hornet.

The weaver children didn’t seem all that enthused to hang out with the two ‘odd ones out’ as it were, so Hornet was glad for the company and open ear. The pair didn’t have to wait long before Herrah came to pick her daughter up.

Hornet ran to her mother’s waiting arms and began talking excitedly about her day.

“...And I even made a new friend! They have the same number of legs as me too! And they’ve never had a honey bun! Isn’t that awful? I’m glad I have a mouth,” Hornet chattered, while Herrah made the appropriate noises to show she was listening.

Herrah glanced over at Wasp, “Come to my office later tonight, we have things to discuss.”

“They’re not in trouble, are they?” Hornet asked with concern.

“It’s ‘she’ darling, and no, she’s not in trouble at all, we just have to talk about some boring grown up things,” Herrah explained.

Wasp felt warm inside at Herrah gentle correction. While she didn’t hate being called ‘they,’ it wasn’t what she preferred.

“Why does she have to talk to you about grown up stuff? She’s not a grown up, is she?”

“She’s a little different. She’s sort of like a grown up, but she didn’t have nice parents to look after her, so she’s had to take care of herself,” Herrah tried to explain.

“No parents? That sounds awful too! You didn’t have anyone to tuck you in at bedtime or read you stories or anything?” Hornet asked.

At Wasp’s shaking head, Hornet turned to her mother, and in that child-like way just blurted out what she thought to be the perfect, most obvious solution to the problem.

“She can live with us, then! We can share my room and I’ll be her big sister! Then you can read her bedtime stories and she won’t be alone anymore!” Hornet said, looking delighted at the prospect of having a sibling, a sentiment Wasp didn’t understand in the slightest.

Herrah looked very startled at Hornet’s announcement, “...I’ll see what I can do sweetling, but I can’t promise anything right now, so don’t get too excited, alright?”

“Okay!” Hornet chirped, sounding very excited indeed.

Herrah sighed deeply and walked off toward her home carrying Hornet. Wasp followed behind her for a short distance before breaking off to go back to her little guest suite to rest and recollect her thoughts.

* * *

The Pale King was pleased at the Pure Vessel’s progress. It had taken it a long time to make the climb, but it was Pure, so he’d taken it from the Abyss and sealed the door behind him, locking all the other impure Vessels away and making sure they couldn’t escape like the first one had.

He’d placed a high reward on proof of its death or capture, and he hoped to resolve the whole mess quietly. Unfortunately, the damned thing had run screaming through the courtyard, in full view of all the guests, before it escaped into the Stagways.

Explaining that away had been a political nightmare, but he’d managed it by claiming that he’d made a few prototypes before managing to create the Pure Vessel, and he’d thought he’d ‘deactivated’ all of them before disposing of them, but that one had been especially faulty and had managed to ‘reactivate’ itself and escape.

He didn’t doubt that the blasted thing was still alive, some Stags had already reported seeing it racing through the tunnels and passing through them like smoke.

With the thing loose in the Stayways, it could be anywhere in the kingdom by now, hence the bounty. Hopefully it would turn up soon. 

The Pure Vessel obeyed his every order and he trained it rigorously. It had to be ready to contain the Radiance. Nothing else had managed to drive her off or cure her infection, so he had to resort to containment.

“You are dismissed. Go to your holding room and wait for me inside until I come to fetch you for tomorrow’s training session,” He commanded.

The Vessel didn’t hesitate. It immediately stopped practicing its Nail swing and walked down the hallway towards the storage room he’d renovated to house it when it wasn’t training.

The thing had very similar horns to the escaped Vessel, but this one’s horns were more curved and they sort of pointed to each other. The prong was much higher up as well, and the horns were thinner overall.

It seemed less developed than the one that had escaped as well. He wondered if the escaped Vessel’s speed and strength was a consequence of it having a mind or not. It had to have been, since all the eggs had hatched at the same time, and he’d gone down to the Abyss almost immediately after, so it’s not like the damn thing had time to train or anything like that.

He huffed a little laugh. The very idea was absurd. He turned and returned to his own quarters. He and Root hadn’t been on the best of terms lately. He refused to let her try and mother an automaton, and she had gotten upset with him. Perhaps if the escaped Vessel was captured alive, he could give it to Root so she’d get to indulge her maternal side?

He examined his face in the bathroom mirror. The damn thing had taken him completely by surprise and had cracked a large portion of his mask with that barbaric club. Where had it even gotten such a thing down in the Abyss, anyway?

He could easily disguise the healed cracks with a glamour, but that would be exhausting to keep up all the time.

He hadn’t molted in years, and he didn’t particularly want to start doing so now, but it looks like he didn’t have a real choice. He glared at the imperfections and clenched his fist in anger.

_ No, I don’t think I’ll give it to Root if I do manage to capture the damn thing. I think I’ll enjoy crushing its shell beneath my claws, instead.  _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> babyhornetbabyhornetbabyhornet :D
> 
> she's all pudgy and cute guys! also, you know what they say about the mouths of babes and all that. 
> 
> so, HK and Ghost have had a little role swap, that's not gonna cause problems at all! ;D
> 
> also PK tried everything to get radiance to fuck off, except bombarding her with nasty mental images
> 
> once Wasp learns the language, communication for her will be x1000 easier
> 
> wasp and hornet will be besties
> 
> wasp and herrah will also be besties, bonding over how much they love hornet
> 
> also, pictures of jacked baby jesus are indeed cursed. muscular babies look so wrong, and wasp looks like the baby bug equivalent. she does not look like how a grub should, and it weirds people out
> 
> wasp was stuck in the abyss training for a lot longer than she thinks she was, but she had no way of telling time down there, at all. her body doesnt get tired, but her mind does, but that takes a lot longer than you'd think when all you're doing is exercising 24/7. she doesnt need to sleep, breathe, eat, or go to the bathroom, so how tf was she supposed to know how long it had been?
> 
> it was like a super training montage, and wasp doesnt even realize how capable her body is right now. there was a reason nobody could catch her, and that reason was she's fast as fuck, boi.
> 
> she's gonna start training and blow all the other trainees outta the water, all while looking like a weirdly muscular baby, and being way tf shorter than anyone else. wasp used to be tall, and now she understands why short people seemed to always be filled with the rage of a thousand suns.
> 
> its because they are :)


	7. I Reject Your Reality And Substitute My Own!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> is chapter is a big sad, guys. theres happy stuff too, but mostly a big sad :(

She waited in her suite for Herrah’s guards to come get her. She worried over what the meeting would entail. She hoped she was just overreacting and everything was fine.

The little bell tower at the heart of the Hidden Village chimed, letting everyone know what time it was, but Wasp didn’t feel like doing more mental math conversions. She sucked ass at mental math, she was a total visual learner.

She decided to meditate and fuck around with her Soul some more. She’d been able to get it to do some cool shape stuff. She just went to that place in her mind where the ball of Soul sat in her chest and she just kinda messed around with it. Currently, she was trying to see if she could flatten it out like a sheet of paper and do some metaphysical origami with it.

As long as she didn’t try to pull it outside of her body, none of it actually went to waste. Since she hadn’t used it at all the past couple of days, the Soul ball was getting pretty dense. She wondered if it had an upper limit like it did in the games, or if it would just keep getting denser until it turned into a black hole or killed her, if such things were possible.

She had no idea how she could close her eyes when she didn’t have eyelids anymore, but she could, so she did whenever she tried to sleep or meditate.

* * *

By doing so, she was completely unaware that messing with Soul like she was now came with quite the visual light show. 

She also had no idea that what she was currently doing was thought to be impossible. Magic, while it had some rules, was mostly intent, will, and belief-based. Bugs who had been raised around magic all their lives thought that it had hard laws, and that some things just couldn’t be done, or that things needed to be done a certain way, like creating a Soul matrix before casting a spell.

These limits were mostly subconscious, but for someone who had enjoyed many different stories that each featured its own magic system, her ideas of how magic worked or what was possible were much looser or they conflicted with each other, making a whole big jumble.

What that meant was that she was essentially a blank slate. She had a very basic idea of how magic in Hallownest worked for the Knight character, but she also knew that all the bosses each had semi-unique abilities that were never explained.

She just decided to try things and wanted them to work, and had no reason to believe that they wouldn’t, because she hadn’t been raised with expectations of what magic could do.

To Wasp, magic worked like magic. Human brains were literally programmed to rather accept ‘a wizard did it’ as an answer than to believe a set of coincidences were actually just statistical happenstance.

With Wasp, the sky was the limit, and she sort of expected for magic to totally break the laws of physics and make the universe cry. She wanted bullshit magic hax, and she expected other mages in Hallownest to have bullshit magic hax, so she saw no reason that she couldn’t do the same.

She had no idea that changing the base shape of her Soul pool was considered impossible. Magical locks operated on this principle, making the ‘key’ the shape of a person’s Soul pool. Since it was thought to be impossible for Soul pools to change shape or for two people to have the same pool shape, magical locks were considered very secure.

* * *

Due to her eyes being closed, and also very deep into her meditation trying to fold her Soul pool into an origami crane, Wasp totally missed the two Stalking Devout that usually came to get her, stopping in the doorway to her room, jaws on the floor.

Wasp was glowing with a nimbus of soft white light, things were being levitated off the floor, and there was a slight breeze that seemed to come from nowhere.

While neither of them were mages, all bugs could sort of sense the shape of someone’s Soul pool on a subconscious level. Sort of like how a person could know the way someone walks or laughs, bugs could sort of associate an individual to a certain ‘feel’.

That feeling literally never changed, it was like a bug’s magical signature or imprint, and here was the strange, mute guest their Queen had made allies with, and their ‘feel’ was changing and flipping every few seconds!

It felt like being in a room full of different bugs, except there was only one that changed her face, and yet didn’t look any different!

They both rushed off to go get Herrah. The guest was a mage, and a stupidly powerful one at that!

Herrah did not expect the door to her private office to be thrown open and her two most loyal guards insisting she had to come see something, babbling about mages and magic and Soul and impossibilities.

They practically drug her out of her own office and shoved her in Wasp’s suite, and when Herrah saw and felt what was happening, she too was shocked speechless.

* * *

Wasp was just adding the final touches to her origami Soul crane, wondering if enough time had passed for it to be time for her meeting with Herrah. 

She unravelled the bird and returned her little Soul ball to its normal ball shape and opened her eyes, and was startled to see Herrah standing in the middle of her room, with her two usual guards peeking through the doorway, like they were scared.

“Wasp. What were you doing?” Herrah asked sternly.

_ Oh, shit. Did I fuck something up? Was I not supposed to be meditating? Wait, how long has she been standing there? Oh shit, did I take too long and miss the meeting?! _

Wasp grabbed a sheet of silk-paper and a paintbrush she’d been given and tried to visually represent the concept of meditation and her little Soul-folding game.

Herrah took the drawing and looked it over, trying to puzzle out its meaning. It was a picture of Wasp, with some kind of ball in her chest, with arrows pointing to more drawings of Wasp, but each with a different shape at her center.

“Wasp, were you manipulating your Soul?”

She nodded.

“And you were changing what it looked like inside of you? You were changing its shape?”

She nodded again. Was it against the law or something? Why was everyone freaking out? It was just a silly little game she played to entertain herself sometimes!

Herrah seemed to rub her face tiredly, “Wasp, what you just did is widely considered impossible by the magical community. I’m no mage myself, but even I know that,” Herrah then seemed to perk up, like she’d just realized some good news, “Wait here, I need to go get something.”

_ Wait, Soul-folding is supposed to be impossible? But it’s so easy! _

Herrah soon returned with an ornate-looking box.

“In this box lies some personal effects from my late mother, rest her soul, but she had a mage-lock installed on it, and after she passed away unexpectedly, it became impossible to open. I could physically break the box to open it, but it’s a family heirloom, so I’m not willing to do that. If you can open this box without damaging it, I would be in your debt,” Herrah finished.

_ Well shit, I can’t just refuse a request like that! What the fuck is a mage-lock anyway, and why does Herrah think my dumbass will know how to open it? _

Herrah passed over the box with care and Wasp made sure not to tip it. She had no idea what was in this thing and she didn’t want to accidentally break any of it. 

She channeled some of her Soul into it, guessing that a mage-lock had something to do with magic, go figure, and felt something like her Soul ball was being matched up against a many-pointed 3D star.

The shapes obviously didn’t match, and the lock rebuffed her Soul, where it retreated back into her body. 

Oh! Did Herrah want her to fold her Soul into the star-shape and open the box that way? Seemed easy enough!

Wasp hummed in her mind as she closed her eyes and continuously channeled more Soul into the box so she could see the shape it wanted, this time folding her Soul at the same time, matching the shapes together. When she’d adequately pointed the last spine of the star, the lock hummed before the box popped open, revealing a myriad of odds and ends.

She offered the box back to a startled-looking Herrah, who took it in slow, steady hands.

“...Thank you, Wasp. Could you please put your Soul back the way it was? You feel exactly like my mother to my senses and it’s eliciting emotions I’d rather not deal with right now,” Herrah said slowly.

_ Wait, what the fuck? My Soul makes me feel like Herrah’s mom? What? How the hell does that work? _

Still confused, Wasp did as she was asked and unfolded her Soul, and Herrah seemed to both relax and become melancholy at the same time. She stared hard at Wasp, who tried her best not to fidget.

“Come with me, it seems we have much to discuss,” Herrah said, before striding out of the room.

Wasp scrambled up off the floor and followed the Spider Queen back to her office.

* * *

Wasp and Herrah entered her office and the Spider Queen gestured for her to sit, so she did. 

Herrah sat at her desk and began, “After seeing how much my daughter seems to like you, I’ve come to a decision. She’s always felt left out and isolated her due to her physical differences, but you are not a weaver or like any of Deepnest's native species.

Currently, you are the being most like her in Deepnest, and you appear to be quite capable. You made a daring escape from a place only one was meant to leave alive, and you spat in the Pale Wyrm’s face as you did it.

I respect that. You refuse to give up, despite all the obstacles in your way. Deepnest could use more like you. Your recent display has only strengthened that belief. Deepnest lacks any Soul mages of its own, aside from the weavers, but their brand of magic is different from that which is performed by the mages in the Soul Sanctum.

Most bugs cannot access their Soul for much at all. There are a few who are more adept, but unless one is born with some affinity for it, most never learn how to use it in ways not natural to their species.

So, what I propose is this. You will be given rigorous training in the ways of the Needle and whatever magical texts we can scrounge up are yours to learn from. In return, you will guard my daughter with your life and become her friend and confidant. A sister in all but blood.

We will continue to search for this Seer character, or a Dreamnail. Until that happens though, there is little we can do to stem the tide of the infection. In the meantime, you will protect my daughter and prepare yourself for the final battle against the moth goddess.

Are those terms acceptable?” Herrah said, very seriously.

Hell yes. Fuck yes. All the yes. This is what she had been waiting for! 

She nodded rapidly.

“Then let’s go tell my daughter the good news. She’ll be delighted to be a big sister.”

Big sister? Alright, Hornet was probably older than her new Vessel body, but Wasp was definitely leagues more mature! She’d been living on her own with a job and everything! Well, whatever. As long as it made the bab happy, she’d endure being the younger sibling this time.

“Hornet, sweetling? I have some good news for you!” Herrah said in a much gentler tone than she usually used. Wasp supposed any parent would be soft around their kid, as long as they weren’t being a little shit.

“Yeah momma, what is it?” Hornet came around the corner, but stopped upon seeing Wasp.

“I’ve talked it over with Wasp, and she’s agreed to come live with us and be your little sister,” Herrah said, looking happy that her daughter was happy.

“Really?! I’ve got a little sister?!” Hornet said, probably the most excited Wasp had ever seen her.

_ So fucking cute! My heart can’t take it…! _

Hornet then ran over and hugged her, making a very high pitched and loud squealing noise.

Wasp hugged her back, and vowed to be the best little sister ever. She would protect Hornet until she was old enough to protect herself, and even then, people who fucked with her family would have to answer to her.

“I’ve got a little sister! I’ve got a little sister!” Hornet chanted.

Wasp got swept up in all the excitement and sheer joy Hornet was radiating, and picked her up and swung her around in a spinning hug, much to Hornet’s delight. Hornet weighed almost nothing, so then Wasp swung her around up above her shoulders so that Hornet was sitting on her shoulders.

Hornet laughed and grabbed onto the base of Wasp’s horns and Wasp ran around the room with Hornet riding on her shoulders.

Hornet was having the time of her life and Herrah was standing off in the corner, hand over her mouth, looking like she was trying to not smile like a loon.

* * *

Hornet had shown Wasp to her room, which Hornet decided they would share. There was an extra bedroom in the house, but Hornet wanted Wasp to sleep in the same room as her, so that was that.

Wasp rarely slept, but she supposed she could pretend for Hornet and wait for her to fall asleep, and then spend all the downtime reading through all her new magic textbooks.

Wasp had killer night vision, a fact she only realized when one of the Stalking Devout had complained of accidentally hitting her shin on the Hallownest equivalent of a coffee table due to how dark Wasp kept her suite.

If even the people who lived in the darkest part of the underground caverns thought you kept your house too dark, then you knew it was bad.

_ I have transcended and reached levels of cave troll previously thought impossible! _

She mentally laughed. Her parents had always teased her over how dark she kept her home, blocking out basically all sunlight. She’d heard all the vampire jokes, but her parents liked to call her a cave troll, all in good humor of course.

Then she thought of her parents, and realized that she hadn’t thought of them in days. She really started panicking when she realized that the finer details of their faces were becoming blurred in her memories.

_ Nonono! I can’t forget their faces! Anything but that! _

She tried to keep from hyperventilating at the thought. She needed a surefire way to never forget them, and then it hit her. She raced over to where she had set up a small desk in her and Hornet’s new shared room. 

Hornet was visiting the Pale Douchecanoe, since he technically also held some custody rights, but Hornet had told her that she only really liked going to the White Palace to play in the Queen’s private gardens and for the food.

Back to her current crisis. She retrieved the highest quality silk-paper she had, the best brush, and the blackest ink.

She planted her ass on the chair and got to work capturing every detail about her parents faces she could remember. While she liked to draw as a hobby, her preferred subjects were animals, not people, and she preferred pencils to brushes or ink, but none of that shit mattered right now!

* * *

She poured every bit of artistic talent onto the page, into that drawing. Her parent’s faces, smiling out at her, in meticulous detail. She must have sat there for hours, but she was determined to not fuck this up. After she was done, she decided on adding her own face, her human one, to the page too, right next to them.

When she looked up, she caught sight of her current reflection on the full-length mirror leaned up against the wall. Drawing in hand, she walked in front of it. Nothing about her new body looked human aside from the number of limbs.

She started to shake, and she carefully placed the drawing back on the desk before she slowly made her way to her new bed. She lay on it and curled into a ball and sobbed.

Turns out she didn’t have tear ducts anymore either. Her tiny body heaved with the force of her breathing, but other than that she was totally silent.

_ No voice to cry out suffering, indeed. _

She cursed the Pale King, the Wyrm, to the deepest pits of hell. She screamed in her mind, because the only way for her to scream out loud would send Herrah running into her room to see what was wrong. 

Herrah was always much twitchier and snappier when Hornet was off visiting her sire. It had gotten even worse after Wasp had managed to communicate how the Vessels were actually created. All the Vessels were technically the children of the Pale King and White Lady, and he still discarded them all and called them all failures.

So she screamed and raged in the privacy of her mind, rebelling against the unfairness of it all. She hated the Pale Asshole, but she hated the fucking ROB sonovabitch that had done this to her in the first place even more.

She threw herself off the bed and raced outside. She needed to hit something,  _ destroy something. _ She held onto the rage, because rage was an emotion of action, and she really couldn’t afford to fall into a depression right now.

She had responsibilities now. Responsibilities to Hornet, and to Herrah, and Deepnest, and the whole rest of Hallownest.

_ Why me? I’m not special at all, so why was I chosen? _

She knew how these types of stories played out. Win or lose, the poor bastard who got isekai’d almost never got to go back to their home dimension. 

_ I’ll never see my parents again. _

She spotted a large boulder in what essentially constituted the backyard of Herrah’s home. Surely Herrah had no particular attachment to that boulder, right?

Wasp had no real idea of what she was doing, but she knew what she wanted to happen, and she was gonna throw herself and her Soul at this stupid fucking boulder until she felt better.

She remembered the exact animations for all three upgraded Abyss versions of the spells the Knight could learn, and she knew such magic was possible.

She drew upon her Soul and the source of Void in her stomach, and funneled all her rage and anguish into the swirling raw magic. She compressed it all into a super-compact ball of rage and hate and grief and sadness, and all the other negative emotions she was feeling right now. She felt ready to murder someone. She pictured the boulder as the Pale King’s face, since she didn’t know what the ROB looked like.

_ Avada Kedavra! _

The ball of magic left her outstretched hands, and when it touched the boulder, it simply disappeared from existence. It didn’t disintegrate the boulder or make it explode or any number of things. It was just gone.

Somehow Wasp knew that the boulder had simply been erased from existence. It’s component atoms had vanished into nothingness. Matter had been destroyed, the universe was crying, and Wasp felt just the smallest bit better.

_ Time to go find more shit to destroy. _

* * *

Herrah pushed herself away from her desk and glanced at the gear-filled contraption Monomon had gifted her, called a ‘clock’. Apparently it kept track of time much more accurately than anything else they had access to. It was perfect for keeping track of all the seconds her precious daughter was in the same building as the Pale Wyrm, murderer of thousands of innocent children.

Sweet gods, she had to distract herself or she’d end up charging into the White Palace to snatch her daughter back and take her to safety.

_ What is Wasp up to? _

Might as well go find out. She had to assess the feral little thing to see how physically capable she was before she started training her with a Needle. Though she did seem very strong and fast already, despite probably being only a month old at this point. 

That tiny grub probably had more muscles on her than all the Hallownest nobility combined. They were a bunch of sniveling, spineless cowards, but there were a lot of them.

She exited to the backyard to find that the entire cliff side had been expanded. Her little private cliff side had almost doubled in size since she last saw it yesterday. 

There were the sounds of impacts and shattering stone coming from around a corner. Had a Garpede wandered onto her property? This deep into the village?

Herrah drew her Needle and crept around the corner.

Wasp was surrounded in a nimbus of volatile black and white energy. The colors swirled together but never mixed, like oil and water in a jar. 

Herrah watched as Wasp plowed full-force into the stone cliffside like a living wrecking ball, taking out a massive chunk of stone and not slowing down in the slightest.

_ What in the name of the First Mother? _

Herrah watched as Wasp tore apart rock with her bare hands. Her tiny, minuscule hands. They carved through solid granite like it was wet paper, and Herrah could hear their labored breathing, which was strange. 

Wasp didn’t seem to tire like a mortal bug did, only suffering from mental exhaustion occasionally, so the labored breathing definitely struck Herrah as odd.

Well, the whole situation was odd, but that wasn’t the point. Herrah decided to observe a little more. 

Wasp brutally kicked small stones out of her way, sometimes picking them up and watching dispassionately as they crumbled to dust in her hands. Sometimes she threw out balls of darkness that Herrah swore felt like pure, concentrated hate, which just deleted whatever they touched out of existence, not even ash left behind.

Ah. Now Herrah understood a little better. Her breathing wasn’t labored exactly, Wasp was just unbelievably pissed off. Herrah decided to step in before she destroyed any more of the cliff face.

“Is now a bad time?” Herrah asked mildly.

Wasp whipped around and spotted her. The threatening nimbus of energy sputtered and died out. Wasp seemed to slump over, shaking slightly. She sat down on the ground and hugged herself, rocking back and forth, shaking her head.

_ Oh dear, that isn’t good. _

Herrah picked her way across the broken field of stone before sitting down next to what she recognized to be a grieving child. Though the infection had not yet affected Deepnest too badly, she’d seen several grubs doing something similar after losing a parent or sibling.

Wasp was finally letting herself grieve. For who or what exactly, Herrah didn’t know. It wasn’t her place to ask, but she could still offer herself as a silent, steady support.

It was easy to forget that Wasp was a grub. She didn’t look very grubbish, and she acted so mature. She held knowledge beyond her years, but Herrah figured that watching a horrible post-apocalyptic future play out in front of you while you could only watch would do that to anyone.

She silently wrapped an arm around the rocking child, pulling her close. Wasp latched on immediately, practically crawling into Herrah’s lap to hug her and shake and struggle to breathe steadily.

There were no tears, and Wasp was silent aside from the breathing, and Herrah cursed the Pale Wyrm.

_ How cruel you are, Pale Wyrm, to deny anyone a voice. To deny anyone tears. To deny anyone the ability to grieve properly. Curse you, Pale Monarch, you cruel, heartless bastard. _

They sat in the destroyed backyard together. A worried mother and a grieving child.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wasp is finally allowing herself to grieve a little, and was so mad she literally willed a death curse into existence. i'll try not to make her too OP, but i have a thing for super OP characters who can't use their OP powers to magically solve everything. like superman having to deal with politics and people being shitty, but in a way that none of his powers are to his advantage
> 
> wasp has to be Ultra-Mega-Pissed in order to use her spell of 'delete button', but she'll figure out how to do lots of impossible things, simply because no one told her that wasn't how magic works
> 
> wasp rejects your reality and substitutes her own!
> 
> also i was totally imagining wasp mentally screaming 'i'm the juggernaut, bitch!' as she plowed into the wall at Maximum Speed and took exactly 0 damage and gave exactly 0 fucks
> 
> when magic is mostly based on belief and intent, when no one tells you you cant do something, then nothing is truly impossible, right? lol nobody gave wasp a lecture on how magic works so she's just fuckin winging it so hard right now


	8. Meme Queen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :D i had fun writing this one guys! wasp is figuring out her own magic system, and its hilarious. you know how certain mental images invoke emotions or reactions, like being able to hear a sound? its like that :)

It took Wasp a long time to calm down, and Herrah led her inside and laid her down on the couch to rest. Herrah would have made her some honey infused tea, but the small thing was denied one of life’s most basic pleasures too.

Wasp’s breathing seemed to slow down before it stopped all together and it took Herrah’s frazzled mind half a second to remember that Wasp didn’t actually need to breathe.

Wasp had likely just fallen asleep and her body automatically ceased all extraneous functions. 

Herrah left the room with the grub that didn’t breathe and went to her office. Part of Herrah’s brain was just screaming that the grub must have died, so she left as to not drive herself even further up the wall.

Her thoughts then went to the wild magic Wasp had used to just become an unstoppable wrecking machine. 

She wondered if it was a good idea to even provide her with magic texts that were likely biased, or if it was best to just keep Wasp in the dark about what was and wasn’t considered impossible by magical standards, just to see if she could do the impossible again.

It was probably cruel to deny her resources she could use to learn, but Wasp seemed like a resourceful sort, so maybe it was better to let her mind remain untainted by the rules and biases of the magical community?

Maybe she should leave the decision up to Wasp?

Yes, that sounded like the best idea. Either way, she’d need to find a secure space for Wasp to practice and experiment with her magic. Maybe she could clean up the cliff side and set up some kind of shed as a workshop for Wasp?

She’d also need to start training her with a Needle soon. She could join the beginner’s classes easily enough, and once she had the basics down Herrah would start instructing her personally.

Her daughter’s safety was paramount, so Wasp would get the best tools and education to ensure that happened.

Oh, but explaining to her precious daughter why her little sister could learn to use a Needle when Herrah had previously denied Hornet herself on the grounds she was still too young would be a problem. Hmm, quite a dilemma. 

Herrah pondered that and many other details, and before she knew it, it was time to go retrieve her daughter from the Wyrm’s clutches.

* * *

Wasp was awoken from her dreamless sleep by the sound of the front door slamming open and Hornet charging into her prone body on the couch.

“Sister, wake up! It’s the middle of the day, you can’t be napping! What if the bad dreams get you?!” Hornet said worriedly.

Wasp flexed her vents slightly shut before inhaling sharply, creating a bit of an odd sound that sounded like a snort, almost.

_Hornet, if there’s one thing I don’t have to worry about, it's the moth bitch coming within ten miles of my sleeping mind! Ha!_

Of course, she didn’t have a way to communicate that yet. Her lessons at school were a bit slow-going. She was still trying to wrap her brain around all the letters and what sounds they represented, so writing words down was a bit beyond her at the moment, nevermind complex sentences.

She just shook her head and dragged Hornet into one of those childish hand clapping games you played with a friend where the pattern got faster and faster. Hornet was delighted to learn how to play a game that weaverlings would have lots of trouble with, since their limbs were structured differently and their hands and wrists couldn’t bend the right ways.

_That’s right, girl! Celebrate your differences! Own what you’ve got! Fuck the haters!_

Herrah soon called for dinner and Hornet ran excitedly into the kitchen, dragging Wasp along with her. Though Wasp couldn’t eat, dinner was a social event and important family time, so she came anyway and tried to not feel too envious.

Hornet chattered about her time at the White Palace, assuring everyone that she’d kept ‘the secret’.

‘The secret’ being Wasp’s existence in Deepnest, and her new relation to Hornet. She talked about seeing another bug in the Palace that looked like Wasp, only they were substantially less cool, since they refused to play with Hornet, and then the Pale King had scolded her for interfering with their training.

Wasp felt a bit bad upon realizing that the Knight, popularly called ‘Ghost’ by the Hollow Knight community, had taken her place at the Palace. She felt bad, but knew that someone had to take her place, because if she’d tried going with the Wyrm in order to escape later, she would’ve gotten found out immediately and subsequently executed for daring to be a person.

_I’ll just have to speedrun this bitch and kill Abs Rad before they get sealed in the temple. Time to get serious._

After dinner, Wasp tried to ask about training and if there was any news about the Dreamnail or the Seer yet.

“Unfortunately, my scouts have not yet returned. I instructed them to also search the surrounding areas if the Seer or the Dreamnail were not found in the Resting Grounds, and it’s taking longer than usual due to the need for stealth. They should be back before sometime in the next two weeks,” Herrah explained, “But in regards to your training, I must bring up something of importance. I’ve noticed that you are a creative little thing, and several of your magical displays I haven’t ever heard the likes of. I can provide you with a few spell books, but I also don’t wish to introduce you to biases and stifle what you think can be accomplished with magic.”

_Oh, interesting...is Soul magic influenced by belief then? That could be very interesting!_

Wasp was a master at lying to herself, able to convince herself everything was fine when everything was actually like that one meme, where the dog’s in the house that’s on fire insisting that everything is fine.

If magic was belief based, she could probably put her shitty coping mechanisms to good use, and flip the laws of the universe, magical or otherwise, the double bird as she made the impossible happen.

_This has potential…never underestimate the power of spite!_

Wasp managed to convey that in that case, she didn’t want books, but a place to experiment.

“Very well, I’ll see what I can do. As for combat training, you start next week after school in the beginner’s class. You’re already plenty strong, so you can skip the preliminary strength conditioning that’s usually required,” Herrah said.

“But moooom, you said I couldn’t have combat training till I was older! Wasp is even younger than me!” Hornet complained. Which, okay, valid point. Wasp could see why she’d be upset.

“I know sweetling, but Wasp is in a lot more danger than you. The Pale Wyrm is mad that she ran away, and will want to lock her up forever if he knows where she is. Wasp needs to know how to fight so she can get away if he ever finds out about her,” Herrah patiently explained. It was actually a perfectly reasonable concern, so.

Judging by the pouting expression Hornet was making with her eyes, she knew it too.

“Fine, but after I molt and get my shell, I get to learn too!” Hornet tried to bargain. Wasp didn’t quite know what that meant, but she guessed it had something to do with aging or maturity. None of the grubs had shells. They were all pudgy baby fat and soft skin, aside from their faces or masks, but those were still pretty weak too.

“Of course sweetling. After you get your shell, you can join the beginner’s Needle classes too, but not a moment sooner. And you know how you get a strong shell?”

“Yes, momma, I need to eat a bunch of healthy food, so I grow up strong, I know that!”

“And also get plenty of rest, so let’s get you two off to bed.”

“Aww! Fine! C’mon Wasp, lets go pick out a bedtime story,” Hornet said, already dragging Wasp off to their shared bedroom.

That had been a bit embarrassing to get used to. Wasp was a grown-ass woman, but nobody else knew that, so Hornet insisted that because Wasp was now her sister and part of the family, that she needed bedtime stories and goodnight nuzzles too.

Wasp couldn’t exactly argue against it either, not unless she wanted to reveal that she came from another world entirely, but she was going to take that secret to the grave with her. 

Her human body had been killed, so even if she could magically return to her own dimension, she’d still be stuck as a Vessel most likely, and she had no desire to end up in a government lab being vivisected.

It would also just serve to greatly complicate all her current relationships for no discernible benefit. She’d already told Herrah all the pertinent information by telling her she’d seen it as a foresight vision, and apparently foresight was notoriously difficult to control, so Herrah was also under the impression that Wasp might go years between visions.

That all worked out just fine for Wasp, but it meant that everyone thought she was just a very mature-acting, weird-looking grub that Herrah had adopted to be a companion to her lonely daughter.

Which meant that Wasp had to endure childish things like being tucked in and read bedtime stories.

_Eh, it could be worse. At least I’ve never heard any of these bedtime stories before, so they’re new and interesting if nothing else._

* * *

The next few days passed without much fanfare. Wasp and Hornet were practically attached at the hip now. Wasp because she was charged with protecting Hornet, and so had to be close to her physically to make that happen, and Hornet was just enamored with her new sibling.

They played together during every playtime break at school, and Wasp was beginning to grasp the basics of the alphabet. Hornet especially liked the pattern hand clapping games and Wasp found herself improving her hand-eye coordination from all the practice.

After Hornet fell asleep each night, Wasp would sneak out of bed to the backyard where Herrah had set up a little curtain that separated the cavern Wasp had inadvertently carved out during her little rampage from the rest of the backyard.

She’d tried to replicate the effects, but that magic had been wild and mostly fueled by her emotions. She could cast her ‘Avada Kedavra' spell only while feeling a truly substantial amount of hate. It made sense to her a bit though, since the death curse it was named after canonically needed the caster to feel lots of hate and murderous intent, at least in the Harry Potter universe.

It was exhausting and took a lot of concentration to try and consciously call up that much emotion, especially without a target, so she figured that she wouldn’t just be whipping that out to one-shot everything in her way, which kinda sucked, but she guessed even her special brand of bullshit had to have some kind of limit.

Wasp and Herrah had both decided to stockpile the textbooks about magic, but Wasp would only use them if she got stuck. She read a couple of the very basic beginner’s guides that talked about how to connect with and channel your Soul.

Turns out that bugs couldn’t actually ‘see’ their own Soul pools, only feel them. No mention was made of being able to meditate and see inside of yourself. Wasp chalked it up to her being a very visual person who pictured everything in her head. She wondered if the reason she’d been able to see what shape the mage-lock had wanted was a result of her thinking everyone could see the shapes of their Soul pools.

She couldn’t imagine not being able to see your own Soul pool, but clearly this was another one of those impossible things she did accidentally. It also turns out that most bugs waited until their mid-teens to even start manipulating Soul. 

The mental discipline needed to consciously connect with your Soul was apparently supposed to be rigorous, and was the single biggest factor as to why there weren’t more mages in Hallownest.

Wasp scoffed at the book. She’d got it first try after meditating in a cave for, like, a couple of hours probably!

(She had no idea it was actually closer to two continuous days.)

There were also things called Soul-runes, which were used for things like enchanting items and creating wards and stuff. She’d shut the book after that, not wanting to accidentally lock herself into a certain way of thinking.

What she did know though, was that the symbols used for Soul-runes were arcane and complex, and did not match the conventional alphabet. 

It took years to memorize all the symbols and how they each interacted with each other. Wasp wondered if a language that no one other than herself knew how to understand or read counted as making it ‘arcane’.

She thought it did. People used to speak Latin, but now no one did and it was considered a dead language, but Latin was also used as the basis for many magic systems because it was old and mysterious. 

Also, the thought of creating spells or wards using English words was hilarious to her. She toppled over silently laughing when she imagined creating a force or spell redirection ward by using the phrase ‘No U’ or a picture of an Uno reverse card.

So, she experimented by creating complicated looking mandala designs, like the kind used in the ‘Doctor Strange’ movie, and filling in the empty spaces with phrases and poems she came up with.

Some worked better than others, and she couldn’t quite figure out why until she realized that what the phrases meant to her personally mattered. She had actually tried to create a shield spell using the phrase ‘No U’ and a sort of distorted version of the Uno reverse arrow. It was meant not to block force or magic, but redirect it back the way it came.

It was one of the few designs that worked exactly as she intended. She figured out that it worked because that’s what the phrase meant to her. She associated the phrase ‘No U’ to turning back whatever insult or attack was sent at a person who used it as a defense, due to all the memes of it she’d seen, especially that Yu-Gi-Oh one.

Then she tried to create a spell that launched objects at high speed using ‘Yeet’. That one had worked too.

Wasp was speechless. Well, she was always speechless nowadays, but that's besides the point! The point was her silly little meme spell she meant as a joke actually fucking worked!

_Holy fucking shit. I can make magic spells using memes and references?! Okay, first of all that’s such bullshit, but oh my god, this is the greatest day of my life!_

She immediately tried to replicate her spell from her breakdown, the one where she became an unstoppable juggernaut and disintegrated stuff by touching it.

_What phrase should I use though? There’s the classic quote of ‘I’m the Juggernaut, bitch!’ and also my own personal favorite of, ‘Move bitch, get out the way!’ from that one rap song._

She thought about what each phrase made her think of first when she heard it. She associated the Juggernaut character, the mutant from the movie, to unrelenting physical force. His power was that his inertia couldn’t be stopped unless he wanted it to, so he just plowed right through anything in his way once he got going.

That seemed to match better with what she wanted, so she went with the phrase ‘juggernaut’ in her design. The simpler and more concise the phrase, the easier she was able to focus on its meaning.

So, she drew up another complicated-looking mandala that was completely meaningless. None of the circles or squares or triangles or Celtic-knot designs actually meant anything, but she associated the mandalas with people channeling energy to do magic, thanks to being an avid Marvel fan.

This one featured a lot of spiky angles, and the pattern of interlocking triangles sort of looked like an action bubble from a classic 90’s comic.

She wrote the word over and over again in the borders and spaces in between the shapes. Then, she channeled her Soul and began stretching and folding it into the mandala shape she had designed, before mentally shoving the whole thing out of her body and into the world. 

A cloudy veil of white energy formed around her like a loose bubble. Not exactly what she was looking for, but maybe it just looked different but still did what she wanted? 

_Let’s hope I’m not about to totally smash my face into the wall!_

She ran towards what she’d dubbed her ‘testing wall’ which was kinda like a magical firing range. She tested all her spells on that wall, like a target at the end of a gun range.

She smacked into the wall and promptly fell back on her ass unharmed, but that was it. The spell had seemingly protected her from the impact but not done anything else.

_Dammit! What am I missing?_

She thought back to what she had done before she’d just gone apeshit in Herrah’s backyard.

_Oh! Idiot, forgot to mix some Void in there. Lemme try that again._

This attempt was much more successful, with the bubble turning more into a fog that clung to her skin, with flickers of black shooting through it occasionally. 

Adding Void into her spells often had unintended consequences, so she’d been trying to create mostly Soul-based techniques, but this one she’d done the first time by utilizing both substances, so that’s what she’d do this time.

She ran at the wall again, this time cratering it and sending small bits of stone flying and still taking no damage, but it still wasn’t as powerful as it had been the first time. It was missing a sort of strength-enhancing effect. It was a work-in-progress, she supposed.

* * *

The morning bell rang just after Wasp finished sneaking back into her bed. She didn’t want to worry Hornet by not being there when she woke up. Her sense of time was getting better, but it still wasn’t great, so she often erred on the side of caution and spent whatever time was left meditating and trying to shapeshift more, since that was a silent affair and wouldn’t wake Hornet up.

Trying to manipulate her Void body was frustrating though. She couldn’t do anything about her mask unfortunately, which meant no shapeshifting a mouth and fixing, like, 50% of her problems at once. Her mask was the only part of her that actually seemed to be made of shell, and not Void flesh with crystallized Void acting as bones.

The Void only really seemed to have two modes: inert and batshit flailing tentacles. Channeling it for her spells was fine, since she was just funneling some of its inert fluid into the spells. 

Her intangibility seemed dictated by the small Void ball in her stomach that felt sorta separate from everything else. She wondered if it was an artifact she’d absorbed or something, but it felt natural and like it was supposed to be a part of her, like an organ or something.

She could manipulate the Void that made up her body though, and that’s what she was trying to do. She wanted to see if she could control the tentacles she could make or at least calm them down so they weren’t so wild.

If she could figure out how to control them, she’d be like Dr. Octopus from Spiderman. Extra, boneless limbs she could use to grab things sounded really useful.

* * *

The morning bell rang and Hornet groaned before pulling her covers over her short stubby horns. Wasp got up to go pull her out of bed.

Hornet was not a morning person. Wasp could definitely sympathize, but Herrah would be a lot less gentle waking her up, so Wasp did it.

“Nooo...don’ wanna get up…” Hornet groaned tiredly.

Wasp just grabbed the edge of the blanket and drug it off of her. Wasp lightly patted at her face and Hornet dragged her groggy body upright.

It took a bit more prodding to get Hornet up and dressed, but they eventually both made their way into the kitchen. Herrah was waiting there with breakfast, and Hornet sat tiredly at the table and began mechanically shoving food into her mouth.

Hornet eventually woke up fully and Herrah took them to school. School went much the same as it had been, and Wasp made steady progress with the language. She’d soon be ready to make use of the small stone slate and chalk Herrah had bought for her recently.

Wasp played tag with Hornet on the playground that day, with Wasp making sure she didn’t go all out, or she’d definitely win basically instantly.

When Herrah came to pick them up that day, she informed Wasp that her combat lessons would start that afternoon.

* * *

“Momma, can I go watch Wasp during practice? I won’t get in the way or touch anything, I promise!” Hornet pleaded.

“Oh, very well, but cause any trouble or distract anyone from the lesson and you’ll be asked to leave by the instructor, understand?” Herrah said.

“Yes, momma!” Hornet turned to her, “You’ll do awesome! You’ll have to teach me too when I’m old enough!”

She nodded and smiled internally. Hornet was just too fucking cute for words. Wasp was excited to learn how to fight, but she was also contemplating what kind of fighter she wanted to be.

In the games, Hornet’s main strengths were her mobility and fast attacks. Wasp wanted to be the best possible guard for her, but also wanted to be able to fight alongside her one day, as well as being able to hold her own.

In video game terms, Hornet was sort of like a rogue or assassin type character. She was fast and could do a lot of damage, but couldn’t take a hit nearly as well, which made sense considering Hornet couldn’t have been much older than a young adult when you fought her in the game.

But Wasp was different. As long as she had Soul, which could be easily collected in a fight, she could heal basically indefinitely. She didn’t have to be able to dish out a ton of damage because every battle with her would turn into a stamina contest, and unless she was fighting another Vessel, it was a fight she’d always win, as long as she didn’t take stupid risks.

Hornet needed a guard, a person to be her shield, taking hits so she didn’t have to. A paladin type character would compliment her best. Wasp could keep the attention on herself, stalling and distracting the enemy long enough for Hornet to escape if she couldn’t fight, or for her to slip around and stab the attacker in the back once they were old enough to fight together.

Combined with the several shield spells she’d recently created, Wasp was shaping up to be a potential defensive tank. But she was also strong and fast, so hopefully she could also dish out the pain on her own if she needed to.

_I may only kill my enemies from a death by a thousand paper cuts, but that doesn’t mean I can’t rub salt in the wounds while I do it!_

* * *

Herrah led them to a very grizzled looking spider overlooking a small training ground. She was yelling at various trainees and barking out corrections to stance and form. 

Hornet wandered over to a bench to sit quietly and watch them. She didn’t want her observation privileges to be revoked, after all.

“Hello Flipclaw,” Herrah greeted, “Here’s the new trainee I promised you. She’s small, but she’s a lot stronger than she looks. I have a feeling she’ll ace your obstacle course.”

Flipclaw gave Wasp a flat stare. Wasp glared back as best she could with a completely immobile face, clenching her fists. She was tired of people underestimating her because she looked like a child. A strangely muscular child, to be sure, but still a child.

“I highly doubt that, but she looks like she’s got some fight in her, at least. You ever handle a weapon before, girlie?”

Wasp glared back. 

_Being mute fucking sucks!_

“Unfortunately, Wasp is mute. She’s a deft hand with a club though. She escaped from the Pale Wyrm by bashing his face in with one before making her escape while he was still too stunned to react,” Herrah said with a smile.

“Ha! Did she now? Very well then, I’ll train her, but only if she gives it her all. I don’t teach slackers,” Flipclaw announced, “I’m curious about your confidence that she’ll ace my obstacle course. No one’s ever managed a decent time on the first go.”

_Challenge Motherfucking Accepted!_

Flipclaw called for the other trainees to come over, and Hornet followed them.

“Class, this is Wasp. She’ll be joining us all today as our newest member. She’s going to run the obstacle course, which means everyone gets a little break for now. Come watch or don’t; I don’t care either way, but your sorry shells better be back on the training field after that, I better not catch anyone lazing around!” Flipclaw shouted.

The class all responded with a hearty “Yes Ma’am!”

They all began to make their way towards a very large, complicated looking obstacle course. 

Flipclaw and Herrah were making small talk as Flipclaw led them, and Wasp and the rest of the trainees followed several steps behind. Hornet was up ahead with her mother, and so was blissfully ignorant to what was going on behind her.

Wasp noticed that many of the trainees were eyeing her up and whispering to each other. She caught a few words of the hushed conversations and silently began steaming with anger.

“She’s so small...look at her, she’s so weird-looking...I heard that the Queen found her in the tunnels… I heard the Queen adopted her out of pity...she’s gonna fail the course so bad, it’ll be hilarious...I don’t want to train against a baby, it’ll be too easy…bet you five Geo she can’t even finish the course...no way, sucker bet!” And on they went. Fuckers.

_I’ll rip this obstacle course outta the ground and beat their asses with it! See who’s laughing then!_

They stopped at the beginning of the course. The trainees walk off towards the side, so they could better observe.

“Alright, rules are simple. You have to pass each obstacle and remain inside the boundary lines. Any methods are permitted, but no skipping any of the obstacles by walking around them or anything smart-alecky like that, you have to go through them. The fastest time is three and a half minutes, you start on my mark and finish by ringing the bell at the end,” Flipclaw said, pulling out a small pocket hourglass that probably measured a couple minutes at a time.

Wasp did a quick bit of mental math to convert the time into something she understood better. Three and a half ‘Hallownest’ minutes equaled to just under six ‘regular’ minutes as she understood them. The obstacle course was big, but her determination to wipe the smug looks off the trainees’ faces was bigger. 

_‘Any methods are permitted?’ Oh, Flipclaw is going to fucking regret telling me that!_

“Get ready, set, mark!” Flipclaw yelled out.

Wasp took off towards the first obstacle, hearing several of the trainees startled exclamations at her surprising speed.

_That’s right, I’m fast as fuck, boi!_

She focused on running as fast as she could towards the first obstacle, a field of pillars that were tightly packed, meant to slow down anyone trying to make their way through them by forcing someone to slow down and dodge around them.

_Fuck slowing down, cause this bitch ain’t got no brakes!_

Wasp could actually leap several times her own height just like the Knight could in the games, which was a fact that seemed to surprise everyone when she just leapt to the top of the first pillar and then ran across the tops of them.

Hornet was cheering her on very enthusiastically.

She dropped down onto the sand from a great height, suffering no ill effects and continued her mad dash.

The next was a hanging net of webs suspended above a pit of water. Most bugs either couldn’t swim, or had a great difficulty doing so. A bug’s vents being on their sides meant that even relatively shallow water was a problem, so most bugs suffered from a form of aquaphobia and avoided large bodies of water whenever possible.

Wasp had no such qualms, and instead of wasting time trying to climb over or hang underneath the webbing to avoid the water, Wasp shut her vents and dove right in, putting all her human swimming talent to great use.

Cue more swearing and startled shouting at her willingness to get in the water.

_This water’s not even above the eye holes of my mask, and I'm short as all fuck right now! Bunch of pansies!_

Wasp flipped onto her back and let her manic tendrils out to play. While she could still only control them in the most basic of ways, making them all flail in a circular motion was certainly doable, and Wasp propelled herself across the shallow lake like a motor boat, sending up a spray of water behind her.

The back of her head touched sand and she flipped back over and recalled her tendrils, taking off across the sand again.

Next was a series of ropes one had to climb to get on top of the high ledge where the rest of the obstacle course was situated. There were no smartass tricks she could think of to get around this one, so she just scaled the rope as fast as she could and threw herself onto the ledge, moving onto the next obstacle.

The next obstacle was strength-based, and involved pushing a large barrel down a corridor and avoiding hitting it into small barriers. Wasp got an idea from watching too much Loony Toons on Saturdays and hopped up on top of the barrel before starting to run backwards on top of it, causing it to roll forwards.

This way she could see where all the little curbs were and carefully steer the barrel to avoid them. It was quite difficult, and she almost fell off a couple of times, but she got the barrel through to the other side safely.

Then there was a small running portion before a large stone climbing wall. On the way to the beginning of the course Wasp had seen the wall. The bell was just on the other side, and the wall was very tall, but not very thick.

Flipclaw had not made any mention of magic use being forbidden, but Wasp had refrained from using any up until now.

_‘Any methods are permitted’, but I have to go through the obstacles, right? Well here I go, right through this obstacle!_

As Wasp sped towards the wall, she cast what she had dubbed her ‘Spirit of the Juggernaut’ spell. While she could have easily used her intangibility to go through the wall, she wanted to make this a bit of a spectacle, to really flip the haters the metaphorical bird.

_I’m the Juggernaut, bitch!_

She became cloaked in a dense mist of light and shadow and plowed right through the wall, shattering stone with an enormous bang and emerging from the other side completely unscathed. 

She didn’t break stride as she cut the spell and grabbed the rope hanging beside the bell and yanked it repeatedly, causing the bell to shake vigorously and make quite the racket.

She shrieked her victory as she let her tendrils loose again in her excitement and vindication.

She had no idea the picture she made. There she was, covered in powdered stone after having smashed through a solid stone wall, maniacally ringing the bell over and over again, shrieking like a banshee and flailing tendrils of darkness around everywhere, after having completely shattered the previous record.

Hornet ran up fearlessly, hugging her and screaming about how totally awesome she was.

Off to the side, Herrah was laughing uproariously, Flipclaw’s jaw was on the floor, one trainee mindlessly held out five Geo to another, and another particularly shocked trainee fell to the floor in a dead faint.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hehehehe :D yes, wasp's memes are magic now. it takes a bit of finagling to get them to work, but when they do, whoo boy! im especially looking forward to a better version of abyss shriek, can anyone guess what meme i'll be utilizing to make that one? its a bit of an older one, but the compilations will never not be funny to me. i'm easily entertained. your hint is dragon :)
> 
> also the 'sneak: 100' meme will be getting some mileage here pretty soon
> 
> wasp is going to be the unstoppable tank to hornet's master assassin, wasp is the tank and aggro magnet and hornet is the dps
> 
> lol can you just imagine when wasp grows up and instead of being all thin and lanky like the pale vessel was, they're built like an amazonian warrior? like still feminine looking, but also just super fucking ripped, and then hornets still all tiny and short when she grows up b/c she got all of PK's short genes?
> 
> lol, wasp is the big little-sister and hornet is the little big-sister
> 
> some unfortunate bastard: *makes hornet cry*
> 
> wasp: *materializes behind them* omae wa mou shindeiru 
> 
> the poor bastard: NANI?! *dies b/c wasp crushed their head like a grape*


	9. Whosoever Holds This Club, Shall Be Blessed With The Power Of Wasp

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> more memey magic bullshit! yay! Wasp is unhappy at the lack of weapon variety, so she fixes that. she fixes it _so hard_ guys
> 
> :D

After everyone had calmed down, Herrah had left to go take care of some Queen business, and Flipclaw had led Wasp to the weapons storage shed. 

“Alright, let’s see if we have anything your size,” Flipclaw said, activating the lumafly lanterns that lined the wall of the moderately sized shed, “All the blades have silk cuffs on the handles that are enchanted to dull the blades for training purposes. When you graduate and become a full-fledged warrior, the cuff is removed during the graduation ceremony, and the blade is yours to keep. Normally joining my classes comes with a Geo fee, but since I’m doing this as a personal favor to the Queen, you get a free pass.”

Wasp eagerly looked around. The shed was mostly filled with Needles, but there were a couple of old-looking Nails in the back. What she distinctly didn’t see were any blunt weapons. No clubs or maces or war-hammers. There weren’t even any axes or spears.

Wasp was disappointed. The Needles looked way too delicate for what she had planned. If Hornet was gonna be the speedy rogue responsible for the DPS of their little party someday, then Wasp was going to be the tanky support who occasionally chipped in with some massive damage of her own.

She also didn’t particularly want to steal Hornet’s thunder. 

“Now, most of these are probably too heavy for you but I’ve got some smaller Nails in the back you can try out,” Flipclaw said.

_ Oh fuck no, I’m not doing that baby shit. Sly was the Great Nailsage, and he was even smaller than me and he had a massive fuck-off sword! I want some of that!  _

She had to show Flipclaw that she was a lot stronger than she seemed, and that her preferred style was gonna be less precision stabbing and slashing, and more ‘Hulk Smash!’ annihilation of the surrounding area.

_ There is no kill like overkill, after all. _

So, she ignored Flipclaw talking about how she could move up in Needle sizes as she grew, which Wasp wasn’t even sure was a thing that was possible for her yet, and grabbed the biggest Needle in the shed and hefted it easily over her head.

Lifting rocks in the Abyss had really improved her strength. Vessel bodies were built almost like machines really. She wondered if her body lifted stuff less with muscles and more like hydraulic presses using Void.

Hydraulics were capable of lifting and pushing much heavier things and were basically infinitely scalable, so that was one explanation for her crazy strength. It could also be more magic bullshit, or maybe something completely different. Wasp didn’t really know, but she also didn’t care that much.

Flipclaw went silent upon seeing her unusual strength. Wasp carefully put the Needle back and began hitting her closed fist onto her open palm like she was smashing something.

Flipclaw looked confused for a moment.

“Ah, you’re interested in blunt weapons?”

Wasp nodded enthusiastically. She hoped Flipclaw could still teach her.

“Well, those are a bit rarer to see, especially here in Deepnest, but I’m not super familiar with combat outside of edged weapons. You could still probably get  _ something _ out of my classes, but I’m not sure how well the skills would transfer.”

_ Well, shit. _

Perhaps she could use something like a claymore or a bastard sword? Something big and heavy that would hit like a train, but also technically still a blade so she could get the most out of the classes? But she wanted a smashy weapon!  


Either way, none of those weapons were available to her right now, so she just chose a large needle only a bit taller than herself, even counting her horns. She easily hefted it over her shoulder and followed Flipclaw out.

She spent the next few hours being taught how to grip the handle and what stances she should take. Hornet watched her and the other trainees with interest, swinging her legs back and forth on the bench.

The other trainees looked surprised at how big her weapon was compared to herself, but she didn’t care what those assholes thought of her, anyway.

Herrah came back to pick them up a couple hours later, and they all headed home.

* * *

That night in her workshop, Wasp got to work inventing more spells and trying her hand at her first bit of enchantment. She brought her little improvised club with her to try and improve it.

The Nailsmith in the City of Tears was one of the very few actual forgemasters that made weapons, and was definitely the best at his craft. Wasp couldn’t go to him to get a custom weapon made for obvious reasons, so she was stuck with making her own.

She brainstormed for a little bit before stumbling onto a possible solution. She couldn’t go to the Nailsmith because she might get seen, which would then alert the Pale Douchecanoe that she was still alive and kicking around in Deepnest, which would cause problems for Herrah, which she didn’t want.

She liked Herrah and was becoming attached to Deepnest, and she’d be damned if she accidentally started a war or some shit because she got herself caught and Herrah refused to give her up for execution.

The solution was to guarantee that she wouldn’t get caught, which meant full stealth, Solid-Snake style.

_ What memes are about stealth? _

Oh! That one Skyrim one, ‘Sneak: 100’ would probably work great as a base! Having an undetectable stealth spell would be invaluable! Maybe she could even teach it to Hornet someday too. Really up her ninja game.

She experimented a bit with how it would actually camouflage her. She knew of multiple different ways that invisibility could theoretically work, but she went with the one that involved turning nearly completely transparent, allowing light to pass through her form.

The only problem was then that if light passed through her completely, she wouldn’t be able to see...or would she?

Unlike normal bugs, Wasp’s eye holes in her mask were actually eye  _ holes _ . As in, her eyes were pits and there were no actual eyeballs anywhere that she could tell. So then, how did she see?

Human eyes worked by letting light in which passed through a lens inside the eye before the light was detected by specialized cells on the back of the eye.

She wasn’t sure how bug eyes worked, since they didn’t seem to actually be compound eyes like the insects from her home dimension had. They looked like compound eyes, except supersized with way bigger facets. 

They probably didn’t actually see like compound eyes did though, since Hallownest bugs relied mainly on their sense of sight like humans did, and they didn’t go around accidentally bashing themselves into windows and walls constantly, which meant they probably saw the world similar to how humans did.

She still saw the world in exactly the same way as before when she'd been human, as far as she could tell, except she had killer night vision now. She could hardly even tell it was dark most of the time, and the Abyss must have been pitch-ass black when the door was closed and the lighthouse wasn’t on, and she’d never noticed.

Maybe the spell wouldn’t affect how she saw the world then? Some weird Void bullshit no doubt.

She constructed her spell and decided to include Void in this one, since darkness played a big part in aiding stealth, so maybe it would make it more effective?

She cast the spell and the world around her grew a bit hazy and dark, like when Bilbo used the One Ring to go invisible. While it made navigation a bit trippy, she could pretty much still see just fine. She wondered if another bug would see what she was seeing right now, or if their perception would be different.

She double-checked to make sure she didn’t have a shadow, and if things like dust and dirt falling on her would give her away. That would just be the stupidest way to get caught.

Fortunately, it seemed to work how she imagined it to work in Skyrim. She had no shadow, and anything she wore or carried became invisible too. It seemed to almost be a field around her body that extended at least an inch or two, so dirt or water clinging to her form wasn’t a problem, but people  _ would _ notice if there was an area where the rain seemed to disappear, so she’d still have to avoid being spotted by anyone, it was just much easier to do now.

But then she remembered that money could be exchanged for goods and services, which was something she needed but didn’t have access to. She couldn’t just get a job either, since everyone thought she was a kid! Also, the Nailsmith was surely loyal to the Pale Fork, so he might just rat her out the second she showed her face to commission a weapon.

Guess she was back to square one, then. Oh well, at least she had a cool new spell! 

As for improving her club, she wondered if it was possible to fuck with the physics of it a bit, y’know, like alter it’s mass or inertia but not it’s weight, so that she could still lift it just fine but have it hit like a train.

Then she remembered another one of her favorite Marvel characters and his signature weapon for the first few movies. Thor had Mjolnir, his magic war hammer that only he could lift easily, but when it was flying through the air, it still smashed through everything in its way without slowing down at all.

If she could get her club to do that, she wouldn’t even need another weapon! Her club was even sorta curved like Cloth’s was in the game, so maybe she could get it to do some spinny spinny beyblade bullshit as it flew through the air like how a boomerang did? 

_ Remember, kids, spin to win! _

Wait a minute, what if she used the phrase ‘Spin to win!’ as the base for that enchant? That would be hilarious! Oh, oh, what could she do with ‘By the power of Grayskull!’ or maybe ‘Hulk SMASH!’ but with her name instead, so the enchants only worked for her?

She rubbed her tiny baby hands together as she stared at the spike that she’d scraped with a rock and generously called a club. Wouldn’t it be poetic for such a pathetic item to reach god-tier status through the power of memes and absolute bullshit, just like her?

If she still had a mouth, she would’ve been grinning like a madman.

_ Okay, first step is to smooth this thing out and make it look less like a piece of shit. I still have some dignity dammit, and I want my signature weapon to look cool, okay? Fuckin’ sue me! _

Thankfully, she had already planned to do that, and had, ahem, ‘requisitioned’ some sandpaper she ‘found’. The rest she could do with her tiny baby claws. They were small, but the fuckers were hella sharp, so with a little magical reinforcement, they could easily carve the necessary ‘runes’ into its surface.

She mentally laughed at the idea of some tomb raider finding this thing way later after she croaked it and thinking that the markings on the sides of it were some mystical and ancient magic, when in reality they were just shitty jokes and memes that only she knew about.

She spent the rest of the night prettying it up and enchanting the thing. The club ended up looking bone-white with a flat edge from where she’d broken it off and sanded it down, and the entire rest of it was covered in memes or meaningless but pretty designs that had been carved into its surface. 

The lettering and designs were sort of jagged-looking by virtue of being scratched into it by little claws, but that only served to make it look tribal and dangerous. 

She wrapped the handle in some red silk ribbon that she also ‘borrowed’ and made the ribbon into a loop on one end so that she had a strap to hang it on things or spin it around from. It almost looked like one of those viking drinking horns when it was done, except it wasn’t hollow.

She’d buffed the thing with reinforcements so that it wouldn’t break, and now she was ready to test it out tomorrow during training. She hoped all her experimental enchants worked how she intended them to, but she didn’t want to test it out now, because Hornet and Herrah were still sleeping and she didn’t want to be that douche that woke up the whole neighborhood with her loud-ass experiments.

She brought the finished club inside with her and crawled into bed. The morning bell rang a small while later and she got up again to wake Hornet up to start the day.

* * *

That day after school, she requested that Herrah take them home first so she could get her club. 

Hornet ‘ohhh'ed and ‘ahhh'ed at the pretty carvings and the delightfully red ribbon. Herrah was impressed at how far the club had come from being a simple broken-off spike.

She brought it to class that day, requesting a training dummy to test it out on.

“Girlie, where’d you get that? That’s not one of mine,” Flipclaw said.

Thankfully Wasp had finally, finally gotten a basic grasp on the language and so could write simple words and sentences. It was a work in progress.

She pulled out her little portable slate and chalk and wrote out a reply.

**Made myself.**

“Huh, you made it? What’s with all the scratches all over it?” One of the curious trainees asked.

Wasp didn’t know how to explain that with her limited vocabulary, but she tried.

**Magic words. Hit strong. Big boom. Always return.**

“Magic? Pfft, yeah right! You’re way too young to know how to do magic, and you’re not even a weaver!” Another trainee said. Wasp had been introduced to them yesterday, but she didn’t bother remembering any of their names. They were all jerks who belittled her and underestimated her. 

_ Fuck them, they don’t get names until they pull their heads out of their asses and apologize. _

**_Fucking_ ** **bet.**

The swear was written in English, so nobody but her understood it.

“Huh, bet? Why would I make a bet with a baby over a fancy-looking stick? And what’s that scribble supposed to mean? You too dumb to know how to write, either?”

“Hey, don’t make fun of my sister, you meanie!” Hornet yelled, coming to her defense.

“Noka, be nice! We treat others with respect!” Flipclaw shouted. She looked like she wanted to use much harsher language than that, but refrained around what she thought were young virgin ears. Flipclaw had no idea Wasp had probably one of the dirtiest mouths around, but she appreciated Flipclaw being considerate of Hornet.

_ Alright, that’s it! I am fucking sick and fucking tired of people treating me like a fucking baby! Time to show this bitch-ass punk who’s boss! _

She harshly scribbled out a reply, the letters extra spiky and messy in her anger.

**Insult. Fight me,** **_bitch._ ** **Also insult.**

“What? Oh, you’re on! Little grubs need to learn to respect their betters!” The trainee said. Flipclaw sighed tiredly.

“Fine, I’ll allow it. We clearly aren’t going to get anything done until you two settle your differences,” Flipclaw said, frustratedly.

Wasp glared at the punk she was totally about to destroy. While she didn’t know if all the enchants worked 100% as she intended, the magic felt dangerous, at least. She was fairly certain that the enchant she’d dubbed ‘Gravity Hammer’ after the Halo weapon would live up to its namesake, though.

_ Get ready to get wrecked, fool. _

They arrived at one of the slightly recessed sparring circles and jumped into the ring. The Trainee used his Needle, still with the training cuff so she wouldn’t be sliced to ribbons, but nobody bothered to put any restrictions on her club, since they all thought it to be a stick. 

_ Time to show them that appearances can be deceiving. Again. _

“Kick his butt, Wasp!” Hornet cheered. Wasp’s heart warmed at the earnest support.

_ Alright, now I really have to win. If I lose here, Herrah will look bad for trusting me with her daughter’s safety. How much trouble would I get in if I totally broke this idiot’s legs? He’s a weaver, so he’s got plenty to spare. He won’t miss a couple, right? _

Wasp smirked darkly in her head at the thought.

The other trainees had gathered around to watch the spectacle. Wasp cracked her knuckles and stretched out her neck before readying her club.

“Ready your weapons! I want a clean spar, so no cheap shots, and no going for the face! Spar is over at first blood or when one person leaves or is knocked out of the ring! Begin!” Flipclaw announced.

_ Time to put on a show, then. Good thing I know how to act like a real diva if I need to. Thanks for that, brother. It's the only useful thing you ever taught me.  
_

Her opponent flew across the ring towards her, intent on teaching her a lesson, but Wasp had gone to college for four years and had graduated with a Bachelor’s degree. There was nothing this idiot could teach her that she didn’t already know.

She dodged out of the way from the Needle that shot toward her. Needle combat was similar to fighting with a rapier. There were a lot of lunges and stabs, but not much slashing, so she dodged sharply to the side, easily avoiding the blow.

She wanted to get a feel for how he moved first, and maybe let him tire himself out a bit. She kept dodging, flinging herself out of the way and using her dusty boxing skills to bob and weave around his stabbing blade.

“Stop running like a coward and fight me!” Her opponent yelled, charging toward her for the umpteenth time. Wasp waited until he’d gotten closer before running right through him using her intangibility, greatly confusing everyone except Hornet.

While her opponent was still confused at her sudden disappearance, She hefted her club and channeled Soul into it, causing the ‘runes’ to light up and feeling a very small sort of bass vibration humming through the club before it settled and disappeared. There, now the enchants were active. Time to test one of them out, but only a weakened version of them, since she didn't want to totally obliterate this idiot, only smack him around until he stopped being an asshole.  


Oh, if only she could've done so to her bitch brother.

_ Wasp SMASH! _

She swung the club at the weaver’s roundish body from the side. She channeled some of the endless anger she always felt when she thought of him, and imagined his face in front of her.

Her club smashed into the trainee’s side like the angry fist of God, cracking his shell and sending him rocketing across the sandy floor, legs trailing after him like stiff streamers. He flew right out of the ring and smacked into the far wall a few feet off the ground, before hitting the sand with a painful-sounding thud. 

_ Hooooome ruuun! And the crowd goes wild! _

Except it was dead quiet, minus Hornet who was cheering wildly at all the violence. Vicious little thing, wasn’t she? A girl after Wasp’s own heart.

He didn’t move for a long moment, and for a moment Wasp was worried she’d killed him, but then he let out a groan and slumped over. Then he started crying from the pain.

She flipped him off using her free hand.

_ Bitch. _

“Sweet Mother!” Flipclaw shouted, running over to check on the poor fool.

“Woooo! Wasp, you won! That was so cool!” Hornet praised running into the ring to hug her. Wasp graciously accepted the praise and embrace. 

_ There, now that I’ve solidified my position as a badass who is not to be fucked with, everyone should hopefully leave me the hell alone and stop talking shit. _

“I’ve got to take Noka to the infirmary, no one move, and if I catch any of you sparring without supervision, you’re going to wish you were him!” Flipclaw commanded sternly. She half-led, half-carried the injured idiot out of the training grounds, towards the infirmary that was located close by, in case of situations just like this one.

The other trainees stared at her in mild fear, one even flinching back as she reached past him to grab a towel to clean the small amount of hemolymph off her club. Some had gotten into the grooves she’d carved, and she had to work at it a bit with her claws to get it all off.

Flipclaw soon returned and began barking orders that everyone scrambled to follow. She pulled Wasp off to the side to talk to her. Uh oh, was she in trouble?

“The medic said Noka had a severely cracked exoskeleton and two of his legs had fractures, and one was actually broken. He’ll make a full recovery, but it’ll take weeks. The medic thought he’d gotten hit by a charging Garpede and nearly didn’t believe me when I told her it was from a spar. I’ve never heard of a weapon like yours. The closest is maybe Hegemol’s giant mace, but that thing is bigger than my entire body. Your club is shorter than you are, and you’re strong, but not that strong. So what, by the First Mother, did you  _ do?”  _

Wasp quickly ran and retrieved her slate and tried to explain.

**Made magic. Strong magic. Am mage. Lots of spells. Special magic. My magic. Just mine. Stick magic. Big hit spell. Make heavy. Very heavy. Very fast. Small stick. Big hit.**

“So you really did enchant this thing? Enchanting is very advanced magic, mages study it for years, and I’ve never heard of spells that do what you’re describing. Are you saying you just created spells? That’s a master-level skill. The only bug I can think of that might be able to come up with something like that would be the Master of the Soul Sanctum in the City of Tears, and he’s a scholar, not a warrior,” Flipclaw said, looking skeptical of Wasp’s claims.

**Not lie. Magic easy. Big think. Big ideas. Other spells. Make spells. Flying spell. Return spell. Special spell. Want see?**

“Do I want to--? Yes, I want to see! My whole world is weapons and combat, and what you’ve got right there might just change the game if you can make more of those,” Flipclaw said incredulously, leading Wasp to a field of training dummies.

“Alright, you’ve got my attention, now show me what your little stick can do.”

Wasp looked at the collection of training dummies set up around the place, and Wasp briefly pondered what to show off next. She’d loaded her little club up with as much bullshit magic she could come up with in fourteen hours. ‘Hallownest’ days were just over twenty-seven ‘normal’ hours, so the figurative day-night cycles were a bit longer than she was used to. 

Now that she’d activated it for the first time, the club was warm in her hands, practically humming with barely-contained power.

Thor had been a total badass with his hammer, so Wasp had done her best to emulate all its effects. The one she really wasn’t sure would work though, was the electricity. 

There was a reason electric bug zappers were a thing back home, and that reason was electricity was very effective at killing bugs. The electricity would flash-boil any liquid in a bug, and they’d pop like grapes when the expanding gasses and liquids forced their hard shells to expand past the breaking point.

She’d been a biology major before she’d bailed and switched it due to chemistry absolutely kicking her ass. She was great at body stuff and cells and systems, but once you got any smaller than DNA, she just completely fucking lost the plot.

She’d done everything she could to try and learn and boost her grades, she went to tutoring and everything, and she’d still barely passed the basic chem courses by the skin of her ass. So, she’d switched her major.

Point was, she sort of knew how chemical and biological electricity generation worked, and that was why the Oomas, Uomas, and Uumuu made no fucking sense. It had to be magic that was allowing them to generate such large amounts of electricity. 

Biological electrical generation was wildly inefficient and needed shit tons of calories normally, and the sheer output they seemed capable of was just flat out not possible in a biological system as simple as a jellyfish.

So, she’d concluded it must be either a more mechanical method or yet more magic bullshit. Considering what she’d seen so far, she went with magic bullshit. 

So, she’d used the Emperor Palpatine ‘Unlimited Power’ meme as a base for the electrical generation and lightning-shooting spells. Hopefully they worked, or she’d look like an idiot here in a second.

She’d had to alter a couple of things, because she couldn’t just summon lightning from the clouds when she was underground. That led her to remember how Thor spun his hammer before he used it to fly, which reminded her of how electrical generators worked, and that led to her current situation.

Wasp backed up from the dummy a little bit and motioned for Flipclaw to scoot out of the way a couple of paces, which she did. Wasp grabbed the magically reinforced red ribbon hanging from the handle and spun the club clockwise rapidly in front of her. 

The club picked up speed unnaturally quickly, which meant the inertia fuckery she’d done had also worked. Perfect.

Strange dark sparks flashed around the club. The color was totally off, but hopefully it worked okay. After a couple of seconds spinning it, she thrust it towards the dummy, still spinning it.

Black lightning crackled around her club and between her horns, which felt super weird, and it lanced out and struck the dummy with a clap of thunder.

The dummy was just obliterated. It seemed to turn to ashes and explode simultaneously, leaving an odd black stain behind.

Cue various exclamations and swears from everyone.

“Sweet gods...alright, I believe you now. Can it do anything else?” Flipclaw said, sounding excited.

Wasp nodded and moved onto a different dummy, this time backing up a lot more. Time to see if the flight and return spells worked. Since her club was slightly curved, she’d leaned into that aspect and tried to make it so that it spun around when she threw it, like how boomerangs worked. Her club wasn’t nearly curved enough for such a thing to work naturally, but magic was bullshit.

Now, she couldn’t think of any memes involving boomerangs, but she was also a huge fan of ‘Avatar: The Last Airbender’. One of the main characters in it used a boomerang throughout the entire show, and even when he lost it, it always seemed to turn back up, so he’d had a bit of a habit of saying stuff like ‘Boomerang! You  _ do _ always come back!’ or something to that effect.

Point was, it was a bit of a looser reference than she usually used, but it was all she had to go off of, so she made do. She had no idea how throwing a boomerang worked aside from the most basic knowledge that you sorta threw it to the side and it spun around and made a big arc before returning.

So that’s what she did. She kept her target in mind and let her club fly. It spun end over end, blurring into a circle from the speed. It flew in a strange wobbling arc, slaloming side to side like one of those little stunt planes that flew sideways around vertical obstacles. It was called ‘knife-flying’ or something like that.

It smashed through the dummy, just like Mjolnir did, and kept going like it hadn’t hit anything at all. Wasp held a tiny arm up in the air, and willed it to come back to her.

_ Come on club, don’t fail me now! I need you to work! _

It didn’t stop spinning at all, but it’s forward momentum seemed to slow a small bit before the thing turned on a dime and flew back towards her in that same strange, wobbling way it flew, quickly returning to full speed.

_ Oh shit! I forgot about that part! _

She braced for impact and the club’s handle smacked into her open hand. She closed her hand rapidly and caught it, but the force, while great, was not bone-shattering and she merely got tugged backwards enough by its momentum to fall on her ass, but nothing broke.

_ Thank god! That could’ve been really bad! Gotta be more careful and consider all the variables next time. _

Flipclaw laughed off to the side a bit, and came over to pull her to her feet. Wasp accepted the offered hand and stood up.

“That was something!”

Wasp nodded before they held up a single finger before pointing at another dummy.

“Oh, you’ve got one more trick to show me?”

She nodded and walked over to her next victim. Flipclaw wisely stood behind her.

Wasp walked much closer to the dummy than before and thrust the club into the air above her head.

While all hits from the club were enhanced due to her fucking with the mass, weight, and inertia of the thing, there was a sort of ‘turbo mode’ where she charged the club up with extra Soul to cause the effect to intensify even more. She’d used a very weak version when she’d smacked the idiot trainee around.

This was the full version.

_ By the power of Grayskull! _

The club glowed white and an aura surrounded it before growing. The club was now projecting a much larger outline of itself made from solidified Soul, like how she imagined the Vengeful Spirit spell to work.

She brought the club down and the hard-light construct followed it with no lag in movement. The projection weighed nothing, but it did cost a fuckton of Soul, so this was sort of a ‘super-move’ kind of deal.

She wouldn’t just be whipping that one out whenever. The lightning cost no Soul, interestingly enough, it just took a relatively long time to charge up. She wondered if that had to do with the ‘Unlimited Power’ meme she’d used as its base. While the phrase made her think of the force-lightning obviously, it also had connotations that implied it was self-sustaining.

Anyway, the dummy was absolutely flattened, and the ground around it cracked and cratered a bit. Very few normal bugs would be surviving that one. Her club was now certifiably a deadly weapon. 

_ While there’s no kill like overkill, at least one non-lethal option would have been good, too. Guess I’ll just have to hold back and be careful with it when I’m fighting shit I don't want to totally obliterate. _

Then she had another thought that made her cackle internally.

_ I can’t wait to introduce the moth-bitch’s face to the business end of this thing! Oh, and the Pale Bastard, too! He’s definitely on my shitlist for treating poor, sweet Ghost like an object.  _

Her dark mirth vanished as she kept thinking about Ghost, though.

_ I hope they’re doing okay. I’ll need to find out exactly how bad their time at the White Palace was so I know exactly how painful I need to make the Pale Worm’s death. Knowing that rat bastard, I’ll need to make it excruciating and so very, very slow. _

Now her mood was just dark in general, and she practiced trying to make the lightning charge-up time quicker against a stone wall. She smiled mentally at the thought of pulling an Emperor Palpatine when she went to kill the worst father in the history of fathers.

If her next lightning blast was especially powerful, no one said anything.

* * *

Deep in the White Palace, the Pale King paused as a strange wave of apprehension passed through him. He looked to the Pure Vessel, which looked back at him blankly from where he’d been inspecting its shell to ensure it hadn’t been permanently damaged during its journey through the Path of Pain. It had done remarkably well, all things considered, but it had taken a few brutal hits. 

It had been able to heal itself just fine by Focusing its Soul, a strange ability only he and the Vessels shared, but it seemed like the Focusing of the Vessels was more complete. Their shells always fused back together flawlessly, while he always had visible blemishes left behind that he needed to molt to get rid of. He hated molting. It was disgusting and undignified.

He felt his mask where his glamour spell hid the marks upon his own face. He clenched his fist in anger. He grabbed the Pure Vessel’s left horn in a harsh grip and tilted its head to the side, staring at it intently.

Its body had gained some muscle definition from all the training, but it hadn’t bulked up like the Flawed Vessel’s had. They looked so similar, so what was so different about them? He gripped the horn harder in his frustration and accidentally caused it to gain small cracks and fractures. The Pure Vessel didn’t react at all. Just as it should.

He released the horn.

“Heal yourself,” He commanded. The Pure Vessel did so. “Run the Path again, faster this time,” He ordered impatiently.

The Pure Vessel got up and returned to the beginning of the arduous and dangerous Path before beginning it again.

While the Wyrm knew that it wasn’t the same Vessel, seeing the thing struggle and get hit by spikes repeatedly as it tried to rush through the Path was darkly satisfying.

He couldn’t wait till he got his hands on the Flawed Vessel and made it regret ever crawling out of its egg.

Beneath the glamour, the healed cracks burned in phantom pain.

* * *

Somewhere in the Dream Realm, the Radiance shivered.

“Why do I feel like I’m in danger?”

* * *

The next few days went on in much the same way. Wasp tried to be a good sister by day, and the best mad inventor-mage by night. The trainees didn’t dare say a bad word about her now. 

Whenever they looked like they were about to, Wasp just started fiddling with the red ribbon handle of her club. Everyone’s unvoiced complaints mysteriously seemed to vanish whenever she did that. Very strange, that.

Things were going great until they suddenly weren’t, though. Herrah pulled her aside after dinner one night and dropped the single worst piece of news she possibly could’ve.

“Wasp, I don’t know how to say this gently, so I’m just going to say it.”

_ Oh, no. This is going to be bad, isn’t it? _

“My scouts finally returned, and they couldn’t find the Seer or the Dreamnail anywhere. We have no idea where they are.”

_ Well,  _ **_fuck._ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> omg, cliffhanger! we see the first complications to wasp's master plan. it will not be the last. also the pale king is a master-class bastard. the reckoning will be glorious guys. also wasp can sorta communicate now, yay! she'll get better, but learning a new language is hard! the stealth spell will be relevant later. you know that phrase i used at the end there, 'the best mad inventor-mage'? that will also become relevant. :D wasp is already emulating thor pretty hard right now, so why not another marvel character?
> 
> you know how in HK, its implied that PK tried to take over/build shit in deepnest but was driven out by the rabid wildlife, James Cameron Avatar style? wasp is starting to see deepnest as a sort of home base/actual home, and her/my father can be a paranoid sonuvabitch when it comes to security/home defense, and wasp is not gonna let intruders be able to set one claw in deepnest without her or herrah's say-so. fuckin tower-defense games guys, i rock at those. by proxy, wasp also rocks at those.
> 
> lets just see PK try to invade deepnest to get at wasp when her cover is inevitably blown. we have not heard the last of noka. you do not give a gadget-user/trap-user/buffing character time to set up. you will be destroyed. hallownest has sort of conquered both the mantis village and the hive, along with greenpath, kinda. deepnest is the one place PK does not have some sort of serious hold over. they have trade agreements and thats kinda it.
> 
> PK will lose his shit a little when he learns that wasp ran right into the one place he cannot just order his knights to go get her without provoking a gang war. cue invasion attempt and subsequent failure after the garpedes come charging out of the dark with fuckin laserbeams attached to their fuckin heads, along with the over 9000 other traps wasp has installed. tower defense games, guys, so good at them.
> 
> do not give wasp time to set up, she will wreck your shit :D


	10. Tantabus, Guardian Of The Sleeping

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wasp isn't having a great time guys. all the pressure is really starting to get to her, so she goes full-bore mad scientist. she's out here pioneering a new age and has no idea how bad everyone else is freaking out.

_ Shitshitshit! What am I supposed to do now?! I NEED the Dreamnail! Like, that’s non-negotiable! How am I supposed to save everyone now?! What about Godseeker? The ‘Embrace the Void’ ending is the only ending where we get absolute confirmation that the infection dies! _

Then she had a thought.

_ Even if I manage to make my own Dreamnail or force my way into the Dream Realm to look for the one Seer guides you to, the lamp booted me out last time! She didn’t do that in the game when it would have easily solved her problem of getting her ass kicked! So, why didn’t she? I mean, yeah, video game, duh, but...what if that means that she couldn’t?  _

_ You only ever encounter the moth bitch by using the Dreamnail on the Godseeker or the Hollow Knight, and it’s implied that she’s mostly trapped in HK’s mind and can’t get out all the way, hence the sealing in the temple and shit. _

_ Godseeker’s a different kettle of fish, but maybe the same thing applied? I mean you fight Abs Rad at the top of the fifth pantheon, but she’s still technically sealed in HK’s head, which is probably why they get freed when you kill her. So, how was she sealed there in the first place? _

_ There has to be some magic binding or sigil or ritual or SOMETHING that the Pale Bastard did. When you get the shitty base endings, you absorb the infection into yourself, but you can’t just do that at any point, only in the temple after you defeat the previous holder. The game gives you the ‘Focus’ prompt on the screen, so is it some drastically modified Focus spell coupled with whatever bullshit magic the temple’s made out of? _

_ It has to be something like that, I can’t imagine what else it could be...so what are my options? _

_ Okay, no matter what, I’m going to need a Dreamnail, or at least some device that does something similar, and then hopefully I can find the Godseeker, but if they’re missing too, then what? _

_ The only thing I can think of that doesn’t result in Herrah being made a Dreamer is if I Dreamnail Ghost after they become the new Hollow Knight, but before the temple is sealed, which is a very, very small window. I’d have to be at the actual sealing, and then like, jump them right after the moth bitch gets trapped, use the Dreamnail on them, and then kill the lamp in the Dream Realm before the Pale Dickwad kills me. _

_ Herrah and the other Dreamers will likely be present at the temple for the sealing so they can be made into the Dreamers right then and there to seal HK away. Maybe I can coordinate with Herrah so she protects my sleeping body while I throw hands at a goddess? _

_ But that doesn’t solve my problem of the Kingsoul charm. It becomes the Void Heart after you return to the Abyss and remember your origins, but how and why the fuck does it do that? _

_ The Void Heart describes itself as a charm that is part of the bearer and that it unifies the Void under the bearer’s will. But, HOW?  _

She contemplated the problem more, Herrah watching her adopt a thinking pose and tapping her hoof-claws on the ground.

_ What if it’s not the Godseeker and the pantheon that allow you to kill Abs Rad permanently, but the Knight’s Ascension into the Lord of Shades? When you just fight her inside HK’s mind, you kill her with the help of all the other shades, but in Godhome, it’s just you. _

_ The Godseeker doesn’t seem to attune themselves to the Knight, going off of all the shit they talk even while you chew through all the other ‘gods’ of Hallownest. So, you likely aren’t getting any worship power-boost from them when you Ascend. So what makes the Knight Ascend in Godhome but not when you’re just fighting in HK’s mind? _

_ Did being cut off from the other shades’ help force them to acquire enough power to end her themself by Ascending? But again, how the FUCK does that work? I need to know so that I can go do that and save everyone! _

_ Is it just willpower based? Like, once you acquire the Void Heart, you can just Ascend whenever the fuck you want if you will it hard enough? Please, PLEASE let that be the case! But, that still doesn’t solve my problem of the Kingsoul charm! Was it ever whole or was it always split in two? Was it split in half after the White Lady fled the Palace? _

_ Oh my GOD, there’s so much I don’t KNOW! I need more information! Fuck! _

_ So bitch, what’s the new game plan? _

* * *

It took her several more minutes of thinking, and then she raced off to get her slate and chalk to try and explain everything to Herrah. Due to her very limited vocabulary and muteness, such a process was what she decided to dub a clusterfuck. She had to draw several more pictures and engage in more charades, but she and Herrah eventually managed to iron out the framework of a desperate plan to save Deepnest at least.

The plan looked something like this:

She’d quit school and combat training temporarily to focus on inventing and experimenting until she found a way to either make her own Dreamnail or force herself into the Dream Realm to search for the one that Seer guides you to in the game. Wasp was saving that last one as the last-ditch effort, since she wasn’t sure if the Seer had put it there for the Knight to use or if it was actually currently located there.

Once she had a Dreamnail or an adequate substitute, she’d look for the Godseeker’s sarcophagus in the Junk Pit. If she found them,  _ fuckin’ A, _ her life just got way easier. If not, then on to plan B.

Plan A was yoinking the Godtuner and traveling all over the Kingdom, avoiding getting caught by the Pale Douche or anyone looking to cash in on the admittedly impressive Geo bounty on her head, and fighting all the necessary ‘gods’ to unlock the pantheons.

Then she just had to kick all the ass and Ascend to godhood herself to kill the moth goddess. Then, bish bash bosh, she’s the Lord of Shades, and then she’d rescue Ghost and they could all live happily in Deepnest. The Pale Worm could go fuck himself with a sandpaper dildo. 

Plan B was significantly riskier and involved a lot more danger to the average citizen. Plan B involved waiting until the Pale Shithead was ready to seal the Pure Vessel away in the Black Egg Temple. 

Wasp would use her Sneak: 100 spell to ninja her way into the ceremony, and then, after Ghost sucked up the Radiance into their head, use their bootleg Dreamnail to go fight the Radiance. Herrah would defend her body while Wasp and the moth bitch duked it out.

Herrah had once fought the Pale Fork to a standstill, despite not being a mage or a Higher Being. Yes, she was  _ that _ good. Herrah was called ‘The Beast’ for a good fucking reason, and that reason was that she was a nightmare to face on the battlefield. Herrah was a  _ goddamn combat genius _ and had assured Wasp that she could hold the Pale Worm off long enough to give Wasp a fighting chance.

Herrah was going to see if it would be possible to sneak in some warriors disguised as her guards during the ceremony so that she’d have backup during the fight.

No matter which plan they ended up going with though, Wasp would have to locate the Kingsoul charm, either by assembling its pieces or just jacking the whole thing at once. She’d sneak into the White Palace and yoink the fucker right off the Pale Worm’s robes if she had to. She’d gotten away once, she could fucking do it again. Before, she’d had the power of surprise and a shitty stick. Now, she had the power of surprise and a bootleg Mjolnir on her side. The Pale Fucker didn’t stand a chance.

The King’s Brand seal on the door to the Abyss was actually going to be easy in comparison. The King’s Brand was essentially a really fancy mage-lock and key combo. Wasp had already figured out how to totally dupe those things, so getting past the door would be child’s play, literally. 

She’d trap and reinforce the ever-living  _ fuck _ out of Deepnest before she went anywhere though. She refused to leave her home and newfound loved ones undefended. The Pale Fork and his merry bunch of idiots could throw themselves at her defenses as much as they wanted, they wouldn’t be getting in.

Wasp was killer at tower defense games, and that’s essentially what it was. Never give the enemy time to buff themselves and set up traps. You will get destroyed. She was going to turn Deepnest into the bastard love child of Fort Knox and Zion from the Matrix. Fucking nothing was getting through, she’d make sure of that, at least.

She was gonna make Deepnest self-sufficient and self-sustaining if it killed her, after the whole ordeal was over. Deepnest traded weaver silk for food and a couple other necessities they couldn’t make themselves, and they needed those food imports to feed themselves. 

She highly doubted the trade agreements would still be valid if the Pale Asshole declared war on Deepnest if they ended up going with Plan B. Hell, he might declare war if they went with Plan A.

Deepnest was a dark, dank-ass series of caverns full of poisonous or pointy shit that wanted to eat your face. It was basically a dark, claustrophobic version of Australia at its deadliest. 

The denizens of Deepnest were mainly carnivores and subsisted off of hunting, but in recent years their population had grown too big to be supported by the ecosystem. They also couldn’t grow food down here to feed livestock themselves due to the space restrictions and aforementioned darkness, so they imported meat from Hallownest.

Wasp came from a world and species that changed the planet to suit their needs. Bugs worked with the land and overall had much less impact on the environment. Wasp wanted to hit that sweet spot in between, where they still had a minimal impact on the environment and ecosystem while still having all the modern tools to utterly dominate anything in their way.

Wasp had gotten a very good modern education, and had loved going on Wikipedia and Youtube binges to find out how stuff was built and how the world worked. She loved turn-based strategy games and played a shit ton of Sid Meyer’s Civilization series. She knew how societies advanced and had the smarts and knowledge to totally game the system.

Fuck playing fairly. Honor had no place in a real fight. Thankfully, Deepnest also seemed to be of the same mind. They were inhabited mostly by different spider species, and a spider’s whole thing was traps and deception.

She was gonna catapult Deepnest into the modern era using the power of magic, memes, and  _ absolute utter bullshit. _ Hallownest had no idea what it was going up against. Deepnest was going to leave Hallownest looking positively medieval by the time she was done with it.

It was time to get to fuckin’  _ work. _

* * *

Explaining everything to Hornet had been a bit heartbreaking for Wasp. Hornet was just a child, and she didn’t understand why her sister had to go away to go do dangerous things and leave Hornet behind.

Hornet finally had a best friend and sister, and now they were leaving her. Hornet ran off crying after that conversation, leaving Wasp feeling like the biggest piece of shit on the planet.

Herrah tried to comfort Wasp, saying that Hornet would come around, but Wasp wasn’t sure. She could only try and make the whole thing go as quick as possible.

Wasp basically lived in her workshop now. She requested materials from Herrah to use in her experiments, and one day she requested a Needle big enough for Hornet after she went through her ‘puberty’ molt and her shell finished hardening.

Wasp tricked it the fuck out, loading it up with enchants. She finished the whole thing off by wrapping the same bright red silk ribbon around the eye of the Needle, reminiscent of her own club.

She used a dictionary and help from Herrah to write a very heartfelt apology letter, saying that she’d come home as soon as possible, that she was sorry she had to leave in the first place, but she was doing it to protect everybody from the infection, including Hornet.

Wasp told Herrah to give both the letter and the Needle to Hornet when she was old enough to understand. Along with the letter, Wasp included several very carefully drawn ink drawings of Hornet and Wasp, as grubs and then what she knew Hornet to look like when she got older. Wasp stayed the same throughout all of the pictures. She wasn’t sure if she would ever grow up.

She stayed basically shut in her workshop, experimenting and creating 24/7. She only took the rare break to sleep when her mind was totally exhausted. She pumped out innovation after innovation, creation after creation, weapon after weapon. 

Even some modern conveniences, like vacuums and microwaves, made their way from Wasp’s mind to reality. Hydroponics were another big innovation, along with a powerful excavation tool, for expanding the tunnel systems to allow for farming and agriculture.

Herrah could hardly keep up with all the new magi-technology being dumped into her lap. Wasp wrote instruction manuals and assembly guides for nearly everything and did her best to explain what each thing did and how to replicate them.

She only rarely saw Hornet, who always seemed sad and she basically refused to talk to her, making Wasp again retreat to the workshop to make more things in her grief.

A great many of them were for Hornet to use as she got older. Sticky traps, caltrops, tripwires, bear traps, and a veritable rainbow of cloaks with different effects. She wrote down instructions for spells and what she had learned about magic. Some she sent out to be used by Deepnest as a whole, and others went into Hornet’s personal stash of treasures.

She’d even managed to figure out a voice for herself, using another Skyrim meme ‘Speech: 100’. Wasp had gotten into the habit of muttering under her breath to herself, no matter that she didn’t need to breathe and still didn’t have a mouth. Hornet didn’t know she could talk. No one did. Not like Wasp talked to many people these days, besides herself.

She occasionally made trips out into the wilds of Deepnest to carve ‘runes’ and traps into virtually every surface. She gave control over all the defenses to Herrah by giving her the master key. It was a large stone disk that projected a map of Deepnest that tracked near goddamn everything. Animals, people, the works.

Herrah essentially had a crystal ball to see everything in Deepnest with now.

Time began to slip away from Wasp. She’d barely seen the outside of her workshop in weeks. She couldn’t stop though. Everyone was counting on her. Once she felt that Deepnest itself was adequately defended, she started on what she considered to be her potential Magnum Opus. She obsessed over it for weeks.

She called it Tantabus. While the defense system, called The Wall, would physically protect Deepnest and its denizens, Wasp couldn’t leave their minds undefended. The infection grew steadily worse, and it was now beginning to affect Deepnest and its citizens.

_ Unacceptable. _

‘Tantabus’ was not actually a real Latin word, but it arose from video games at some point. Wasp wasn’t sure on the origins of the word, but it didn’t matter. It was supposed to be another word for ‘nightmare’, and to the Radiance, that’s exactly what it would be.

A sentient guardian of the ethereal place where sleeping minds went. It did not actually reside in the Dream Realm, since the Radiance was god and master there, and would undoubtedly destroy it if she found out about it.

Part of it acted as a sort of net that caught sleeping minds before they connected to the Dream Realm. If their minds never entered the Dream Realm, the Radiance couldn’t touch them.

The other part of it was what made it so special. It was alive. An artificial intelligence born of magic and the frantic workings of a near-crazed mind, desperate to protect her new family. They could hate her and ignore her all they wanted, but Wasp would make sure they were still alive to do so.

Just to spite the moth bitch, the Tantabus’s form resembled a Wasp from her original world. It was made of a purple-black fog speckled with stars and had glowing white eyes, resembling a shade quite a bit. 

Wasp had discovered that Dream Essence was an entirely different type of energy, one that she couldn’t touch or manipulate at all, no matter what she tried. Creating a Dreamnail was impossible, even for her. But that was what the Tantabus was for. 

It was hell to get the thing working, requiring a very delicate balance of Soul and Void, and the Tantabus’s physical form was an enormous stone sphere, big enough to go inside. It was the size of a small tool shed. Every inch of it was scrawled with runes, actual ones, as well as the occasional meme.

Wasp had eventually broken down and read all the magic textbooks Herrah could acquire after hitting one too many roadblocks during the Tantabus’s creation. 

She’d memorized a great many runes, and eventually got fed up trying to keep track of all the interactions and common combinations, and wrote a textbook of her own. She streamlined the whole process greatly.

Wasp had taken a great many coding classes in college, and finally stumbled across the new method for all her magic. Code. It was all magic code using runes as commands and memes as definable variables with effects. It was madly brilliant and brilliantly mad. She doubted anyone but herself could ever truly come to understand it fully.

Everything required much less trial-and-error after she’d puzzled that one out. What was that one Doctor Strange quote? ‘Magic is the source code of the universe’? Something like that. It really was though.

After weeks of continuous work, the Tantabus was ready to come online for the first time. It took an enormous amount of magical power, including Void. Wasp had to invent Soul and Void generators that condensed shadows into Void, and filtered Soul out of the air, like those mysterious Soul totems you could find scattered around the kingdom, just to power the damn thing. 

If it wasn’t such a power-hog, she’d have extended its radius to all of Hallownest, but she couldn’t. The power demands increased exponentially past a certain radius, so it was only big enough to cover Deepnest, just barely.

Wasp activated runes on the inside of the Tantabus’s main driver engine. The whole shed-sized sphere of stone hummed with a force she felt in her bones, and then a wave of darkness raced out of it, passing through everything harmlessly. Good. That meant it was working.

The Tantabus powered up for the first time, and Wasp prepared to make first contact with this world's first artificial life. In a way, it was like her child. She’d done her best to install morality and as few hard laws into it as she felt she could get away with. 

The Tantabus was meant to be alive, and its prime directive was set to become blank once the infection was over and it no longer needed to catch and guard the minds of the sleeping. It would be free to self-determinate after that.

She didn’t want to trap the poor thing. It deserved to be free and live its own life and make its own decisions once the world was no longer ending. Wasp hoped it would be kind and compassionate, a helper to the core.

The Tantabus powered up and its smoky form materialized in the center of the small room. It seemed confused for a bit before it spoke.

“Hello. Where am I? What am I? Who are you?” It asked. 

_It's aliiiive!_

Wasp inhaled through her vents and spoke to another being using her own voice for the first time. Her chest vibrated with her voice. She had no mouth or vocal cords, so Wasp used her body to speak. Her voice sounded almost nothing like her human one, but that was okay. Her voice was humming and almost songlike. Wasp found it to be very pretty.

“Hello there, little one. Your name is Tantabus. I created you. My name is Wasp. Currently, we are inside your core. Welcome to the world. I wish it were under better circumstances, but the world is going to shit right now and I could really use your help.” Wasp said.

Tantabus tilted its head and clicked its mandibles. After so long seeing Hallownest bugs with their more humanoid proportions, seeing an actual insect was quite strange.

“I am Tantabus. I was created by you. Am I alive? Do I have a soul?” It asked.

Wasp exhaled sharply. Right to the deep shit, then.

“While I cannot answer those questions for you, I believe that you are alive, and if you can ask such a question, then I believe that you might have a soul. I know souls to be real. I would not be surprised to find if you had one of your own,” Wasp said. While she didn’t want to necessarily cut this self exploration session short, she had diagnostics to run.

“Do you know why I created you? Your directives should be easy to access.”

“I see now. I am Tantabus, guardian of the sleeping, a shield against the burning light. I will help you, Creator Wasp.”

“Fuckin’ A. Your directives will delete themselves and you will be free to choose what you wish to be after the threat I created you to defend against is gone. I have no wish for a slave, but a friend is always welcome. 

I have to leave on a journey to destroy that burning light, and I’m counting on you to guard Deepnest and my family where I can’t. You reside on the edge of the waking world and the realm of dreams. While you can catch and prevent a sleeping mind from reaching the Dream Realm, you can also do the opposite, and throw a sleeping mind into the Dream Realm.

The light fears me, for I seek to become the consuming darkness and swallow the light. To do so, I need a tool found only in the Dream Realm. Its master will not grant me entry out of fear, so you will bypass that bitch completely and yeet me right into her domain. Can you help me?” Wasp asked seriously. Her speech tended to a strange mix of archaic and slang-filled when she was serious. 

Tantabus seemed to stand taller, “I can do this, Creator Wasp. I will guard Deepnest while you eliminate the threat. I won’t fail you.”

“I don’t doubt it. I’m going to seal your core when I leave this place so you can’t be disturbed or fucked with. Do not open the door until I return. If I do not return within a year and a day, assume I got got, and you may open the door and seek out allies then. Your core is equipped with various weapons systems, but you are only to use them to defend yourself or others. I’m going to go to sleep now. You know what to do.”

“I do.”

“Then make me proud, baby.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> next couple of chappies will probably the different viewpoints of various characters before we get back to plot stuff. wasp is trying to figure out what the master plan is and is missing some pretty critical puzzle pieces. she's also launching deepnest into a semi-modern era very quickly and has no idea the chaos she causing. the rumors are wild guys. 
> 
> also she's found a workaround for getting back into the dream realm and how to protect her loved ones while she's off saving everyone else. 
> 
> also, even without reproducing wasp has somehow managed to saddle herself with a kid, lol. thankfully tantabus is pretty self-sufficient and is also not an asshole. i sorta picture it like JARVIS from iron man. it'll get more advanced as it learns and it'll choose pronouns for itself and everything.
> 
> wasp thinks she's just made a magic dream AI. tantabus is not just a magic dream AI. ;) i always thought it was interesting how we have a dream goddess, a nightmare god, but no god that represents dreamless sleep. 
> 
> void doesnt have anything to do with sleep, void is just the endless darkness and ultimate annihilation given form in a strange paradoxical way. void is a contradiction of itself. if light is order, void is chaos and contradictions, and paradoxes, yet it still exists and likes to flip sanity and rules the bird as it totally disregards them, lol.


	11. A Mosaic Of Memories

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so this chapter is a bit more experimental. all the different perspectives are happening at slightly different times from each other, so i hope that came across okay. 
> 
> it's sort of telling the complete story out of order and from the perspectives of different people, i'll have a sort of timeline explanation in the end author's notes

Herrah was worried about the adopted grub she’d come to see like a second daughter. After Herrah had told her about the scouts’ unfound quarry, Wasp had seemingly withdrawn into herself. 

They’d come up with plans, a couple of very dangerous plans, but it was the best they had at the moment. Both plans put a lot of pressure on Wasp, and Hornet’s hurt and confusion only seemed to make things worse.

Hornet didn’t understand why her new sister had to go and do all these dangerous grown up things, and frankly, neither did Herrah. Well, she understood why, of course, but the poor grub insisted on doing everything herself, that she was a Vessel and was built differently. She had no need for food or water or rest and so was best suited to the dangerous tasks.

Wasp had said that she needed to prepare properly though, and that she couldn’t leave Deepnest undefended. The depth of her worrying seemed to edge almost into paranoia sometimes, but Herrah knew that it wasn’t paranoia if they really were out to get you, and Wasp was quite literally a wanted bug, dead or alive.

After Hornet’s rejection, Wasp retreated to her workshop in the backyard and refused to leave, working day and night on her mysterious projects. She occasionally requested materials and Herrah provided them.

Out of Wasp’s little workshop flowed marvels the likes of which Herrah had never seen. They all came with little instruction manuals, as well as assembly instructions, so that more could be made. 

One day Wasp requested a Needle too large for her to use, and Herrah gave it to her. Wasp had the oddest requests for materials sometimes, but Herrah always provided. A couple of days later, Wasp emerged with a gleaming Needle that practically crackled with power. 

The blade almost looked scuffed and scratched, but then Herrah realized that they were tiny etchings made of strange, simple symbols. It looked almost like a language, but not any that Herrah had ever heard of. Just another one of Wasp’s oddities.

She wrote out on her slate that it was a Needle for Hornet when she grew big enough to use it. Apparently, Wasp knew what Hornet would grow up to look like, for she had seen Hornet in the visions of the bad future that hopefully wouldn’t be.

Unfortunately, it appeared as though Hornet had inherited her sire’s stature, and unless she had a rapid last-minute growth spurt, wouldn’t even grow tall enough to surpass him.

Wasp had requested Herrah’s help in composing a very touching and heartfelt letter explaining why she felt the need to leave and begged for Hornet’s eventual forgiveness. She’d also provided a series of very well-done ink drawings of the two of them with Hornet at various ages, but Wasp was always the same.

She hoped that wasn’t some subtle indication that Wasp thought she wouldn’t survive long enough to grow up. 

Wasp had given the stack of drawings and the letter to Herrah to give to Hornet when she either became mature enough to understand, or grew big enough to wield the Needle, whichever came first.

Wasp had called the blade ‘Sting’ and said it would glow blue like Lifeblood in the presence of enemies. 

That was the last Herrah saw of Wasp for a while. She frequently went to go and try to persuade her to take the occasional break or try to make up with Hornet, but her daughter was stubborn like a Goam and refused to talk to Wasp, feeling betrayed.

Wasp always output more inventions after the failed attempts at reconciliation. The poor thing was working herself to the bone in her grief. Herrah tried to do what she could, but Wasp refused to take breaks most of the time, explaining that she didn’t need them and should be spending the time doing something productive.

Miracles flowed from her workshop and Herrah was hard pressed to explain to others how any of it was possible. No one but Wasp understood the strange magics, but they worked and were usually quite easily replicated. 

The symbols she used were quite simple, not like most Soul-runes at all. Some were entirely curvy or straight, and some were combinations of both, but none of them took more than a few strokes to make.

Some things she made were powerful weapons, others were merely devices that made housework easier. One especially popular device was one that looked like a little stone disk that scooted around on the floor, cleaning it. It hovered barely an inch off the ground and sucked up dust and dirt, along with other messes off the floor, completely automatically.

It even made cute noises and flashed different colors when you patted it or when it bumped into things occasionally. Wasp had called it a ‘Roomba,’ a strange foreign-sounding word that meant nothing to anyone but Wasp. 

All the women in the Hidden Village were clamoring for one. They were like little pets that cleaned up messes instead of making them! The children loved them too, the Roombas were cute and totally safe, and when they weren’t actively cleaning, they just sort of puttered around looking absolutely adorable.

Wasp was becoming something of a household name now. Rumors were flying, but they were mostly positive. Hornet seemed a bit envious about how much attention Wasp was getting when she never even showed her face anymore, so Herrah made sure to spend extra time with her to make up for it.

Hornet seemed to appreciate it, at least. She still went and visited the Pale Wyrm occasionally, and said that the Pure Vessel the Wyrm seemed so obsessed with seemed to be growing. That had confused Herrah, because Wasp hadn’t grown a single centimeter since she’d first arrived.

Even Hornet had molted a couple of times since then, but nothing from Wasp. Herrah hoped it wasn’t because Wasp was somehow malnourished or lacking some vital thing to keep her healthy.

* * *

The citizens of Deepnest didn’t quite know how to react to all of the new inventions and devices that Herrah kept introducing every so often, claiming them to be the work of her adopted daughter, Wasp.

Wasp had suddenly dropped out of school one day and no one had really seen her since. Rumors were flying around but no one really believed them. Her inventions were magic miracles the likes of which none of them had ever heard of before.

Wasp had earned a few different titles around town. ‘The Mad Mage’ ‘The Recluse’ ‘Miracle Maker’ and ‘The Mad Inventor’ were all popular, but amongst a select few weavers, ones who had been at the Pure Vessel’s unveiling, called her ‘The Mad Godling’.

Everyone could agree she must have been slightly touched in the head to come up with such outlandish ideas, but that her madness was only matched by her intellect and impressive magical power.

Whatever the case, aside from Noka, who’d apparently provoked her quite badly, she’d never hurt anyone and had made countless little things that made their lives easier. 

A few weavers scoffed at the inventions she’d called a ‘loom’ and a ‘sewing machine’, thinking such things were an insult to their skills, but no one could deny that it allowed the less-skilled weavers to up their outputs dramatically.

The highest-quality silk was still all handmade and handwoven, but the uptick in production speed allowed the weavers to produce an excess of woven silk sheets and simple cloaks for the first time in years.

That fact, coupled with Deepnest’s newest ability to grow crops to feed livestock using the strange little magically-lit glass boxes Wasp had invented, meant that Deepnest could begin agriculture and animal husbandry in a way they never could before.

They traded the extra stock of silk for some Gruz and other commonly eaten bugs to begin breeding them and finally gain a bit of independence from Hallownest and their meat imports.

Things were changing so rapidly Deepnest could hardly keep up, but they were the adaptable sort, and for once things seemed to be looking up. 

But not everything was on the up and up. It had been almost a year since Wasp had first arrived in Deepnest, and the infection was really beginning to ramp up. More Deepnest wildlife was falling prey to the infection, and the rare infection of a villager became distressingly more common.

Then, one day, it all stopped. The creatures that were already infected stayed infected, but no new cases were cropping up. Everyone was shocked of course, and many people reported sleeping better than ever. They all said the same things.

_ “It felt like there was something there in the dark with me, but it was kind and gentle...It held me close and I felt so safe...It was dark and warm and soft, like a hug...I saw the light coming near, but the darkness snatched me away and saved me!” _

“Tantabus,” They whispered, “The Guardian of the Sleeping.”

The presence never spoke to them, but they could all feel its darkness guarding them from the burning light that had plagued their dreams for months. No one knew quite what it was, but they were all so grateful for the respite that no one really cared where it had come from, only that they wanted it to stay.

Some built little places for it in their shrines to the First Mother, the Great Ancestor. Smoky quartz crystals and bits of tinsel that shimmered faintly in the light. Tantabus looked like no mortal bug, but a being made of living smoke and sparkling, shimmering starlight.

Eyes like pearls in the dark, they gave this new god their praise and gratitude, and they felt it grow stronger, a more capable protector in the dark.

Yes, Tantabus would protect them.

* * *

The Radiance was furious. First, the wretched little thing that she'd encountered all those months ago appeared back in her domain, somehow without Radiance's knowledge or permission and had stolen the Dreamnail! Then some time after that encounter, a whole chunk of the Wyrm's kingdom just vanished from her perception, and she couldn’t find it!  


Regarding the first thing, she'd sensed the little perverted creature's mind and stayed far away after that first encounter. Not infecting one bug wouldn't matter in the long run. It would probably be killed by one of her thralls at some point anyway, so she didn't give it much thought.  


Except she probably should've, since it was clearly more powerful that she'd thought it was! It somehow snuck into her domain, and she'd had no clue until she felt its presence suddenly appear behind her! It used some strange spell she'd never heard of, and even worse, it was laced with that awful darkness, her ancient enemy. It was supposed to be sleeping and inert! 

But somehow a small piece of it seemed to have grown legs and it had assaulted her! She'd not even had any idea that the small thing was a creature born from that horrid darkness until she sensed it channel some into a spell in a way she'd not ever thought possible.

It had used some kind of force or pressure wave that had blasted her backwards, greatly disorientating her long enough for the wretched cur to make off with the Dreamnail, the last sacred artifact she had left from her beloved tribe of moths! It had shouted a threat that it would return as it left, and now that it had the Dreamnail, she wouldn't be able to just boot the awful Void creature from her domain the next time it came back!   


Radiance refused to admit, even to herself, that she was scared of the thing.

Then, to make matters worse, shortly after that encounter, that very night in fact, a whole section of Hallownest just seemed to up and disappear! The two things had to be related somehow!

She looked everywhere, but it wasn’t like it was shrouded in that hated darkness, no, she would’ve been able to sense that and burn it away. This was like there just were no minds, no dreamers to take a hold of! It was if a whole section of the kingdom had just up and died, down to the last lumafly!

That was preposterous of course, and no mind had any inkling of what might have caused such a thing. From the memories of her army of thralls, that section of the kingdom was one not even the Wyrm had been able to conquer, called Deepnest.

Many of her thralls, especially those from Hallownest’s nobility, were terrified of the place. It was apparently a very dark place filled with deadly and vicious creatures. People, the weavers mostly, apparently lived deep in its depths, and they traded silk in exchange for food from the rest of the kingdom.

They were ruled by a creature called ‘Herrah the Beast’, who had apparently once fought the Wyrm and while she hadn’t quite won, had managed to fight him to a standstill!

This ‘Herrah’ person had a small amount of the Radiance’s respect, if only because she tended to like anything that caused that wretched Wyrm misery or misfortune.

But recently their kingdom had totally closed its borders. Not that they got a lot of, if any, visitors, but now all travel to and from the place was forbidden. This apparently wasn’t all that unusual, such things had happened in the past, and many of them suspected it had to do with the infection causing them to close their borders for whatever reason, except that trade was still as strong as ever.

It was actually doing even better than it had been. More silk was coming from the place than ever before, and they had been trading the excess for some unusual items. Livestock and seeds mostly, along with magic texts, which was highly irregular.

Deepnest was not known for its mages. Aside from the special silk magic of the weavers, no Deepnest citizen had a lick of magical potential as far as anyone knew. Apparently, that was no longer the case. They were mostly beginner’s texts that were being traded for, not advanced ones.

The Radiance had no clue what was going on in that place, but apparently nobody else did either. She continued scouring the memories of her newest thralls in an effort to find out more, but information was terribly scarce.

If a whole section of the kingdom could just vanish from her senses, who’s to say the same couldn’t happen to the rest of the kingdom? It had to be the doing of that horrid Void creature, she just knew it. She had no idea where the thing had come from, or how it was able to exist in the first place. 

When she'd first encountered it, it had been missing its parents, which confirmed that it had actually been born and hadn't just crawled from that dark ooze like she'd thought at first. It was clever though. It had immediately figured out that she was reading its mind to determine what it desired most and used that knowledge against her. 

She never bothered to dig too deep in a bug's mind at first, most bug's wishes were simple affairs, so she merely sought the basic knowledge of what they wanted. She didn't actually get images unless a bug was picturing something very vividly, which is how she knew the Void creature was a sexual deviant of the highest order. They were clearly a voyeur, because the images she'd seen could have only been so clear if they'd come from the actual visual memories of its mind, not just its imagination.  


Imagined images were never as clear as actual memories, and unfortunately, the images had been crystal clear. So horridly, horridly crystal clear. She had no idea what those pink fleshy creatures were, but they were disgusting to look at, all exposed meat with bits that almost seemed like their shells were on the inside! Radiance gagged at remembering them. The creatures were practically inside-out!

The closest bug analogy were maggots, which were pathetically weak creatures even the rest of Hallownest thought to be somewhat gross-looking. But maggots were all soft flesh like young grubs had, they didn't have shells on the inside!

If the bizarre creatures she'd seen were gross to look at normally, seeing them...fornicate with each other was at _least_ a hundred times worse! Radiance wished she could forget such horrid images, but images so traumatizing had the unfortunate habit of sticking around no matter what one did.

All she'd learned from that horrid encounter was that the creature must have been very well traveled or come from a far away land, since in her many long years of existence, she had ever even heard of such creatures.

* * *

The Pale King was suspicious. Deepnest had been acting oddly lately. They had sealed their borders, but that was almost expected at this point, the infection was starting to pick up steam, and the Pale King was pushing the Pure Vessel harder than ever in an attempt to get it ready as quick as possible.

He’d performed the necessary rituals on it to get it to grow, and now he just had to wait until it was done. It shouldn’t take more than a few months to grow to its full size, and then just a few more weeks after that to finish conditioning it, and then it would be ready to contain the Radiance.

Root had finally fled the Palace and retreated to her private gardens, unable to handle his increasingly short temper. He found himself taking small bits of his anger out on the Pure Vessel and calling it sparring.

It learned how to dodge and heal itself quicker, if nothing else.

Suddenly, a retainer came running into the throne room, distracting him from reading the latest infection rate reports.

“Your Brilliance, there is a petitioner here to see you!” They panted.

“So? I have suspended all petitions until the infection is dealt with, send this one away like all the rest!” The Pale King said snappishly.

“But Sire, it is a weaver from Deepnest who says they bring important news!” The retainer protested.

The Pale King sat up straighter. Deepnest citizens never came to the palace in person. They always sent letters. Always. Only Herrah and some of her most trusted guards ever actually came to the Palace for diplomatic meetings.

“Send them in,” He commanded.

The retainer bowed deeply and left quickly. The next time the large doors opened, an adolescent weaver came through. His carapace was quite scarred on one side of his body, like he’d taken a massive impact to the side.

“Pale King, I am Noka. I bring news about the whereabouts of the Flawed Vessel,” The weaver, Noka, said.

The Pale King leaned forward eagerly. “Oh? Do tell. If your information leads to its capture, you will be handsomely rewarded,” He nearly purred. Finally, some good news!

As Noka detailed exactly where the Flawed Vessel had been hiding the entire time, no one noticed the Pure Vessel’s fists clench in worry and fear and anger beneath its pure white cloak and armor.

“Someone fetch me parchment and a quill. It seems Herrah and I need to have a little  _ chat,” _ He said darkly. If Noka’s information was correct, Herrah had a lot to answer for.

* * *

Hornet sniffled in her room. She missed talking to her sister. Even if Wasp couldn’t talk back, she played fun games and was always willing to listen.

But Hornet was also mad at her. It seemed like she had only just gotten here before she had to stop hanging out with Hornet to do dumb grown up things. While the stuff she made was cool, Hornet would rather have her sister back than any amount of cool stuff.

Sometimes she came out of her dumb little clubhouse to try and hang out again, but then Hornet would just get all mad, and then Wasp would feel bad and leave again. 

Hornet wanted to say that she just wanted to have her sister back, but the words would get all stuck in her throat and then she’d tear up in frustration and run away because she didn’t like anybody to see her cry like a baby, and by the time she got her tears under control, Wasp was gone again.

Hornet threw herself back on her pillow, only to hear the crinkle of silk-paper. She sat up confusedly, and saw the corner of an envelope peeking out from underneath her pillow.

She picked it up and stared at the familiar sloppy handwriting on the front. Wasp had written her a letter. She’d never done that before.

Hornet opened the letter.

> _ Beloved Sister, _
> 
> _ I am sorry it came to this. Know that I did not leave you by choice, but by necessity. The infection is growing stronger, and I have finally acquired the means to bring about its end. _
> 
> _ I only withdrew from you to create things that would keep you safe and comfortable in my absence. I love you dearly. I could not live with myself if anything were to happen to you. I understand you are hurt and angry. You are well within your rights to be. _
> 
> _ I am writing this letter to let you know that I have finally completed what might be my last, greatest creation. I call it Tantabus. It is alive and it will keep you safe as you sleep. It will guard the sleeping minds of all of Deepnest, but know that I built it for you, dearest sister. The infection will not touch you or any who reside in Deepnest’s borders. _
> 
> _ I beg of you, stay where it can keep you safe. Do not leave Deepnest. If I have planned everything correctly, the Hidden Village should be well on its way to becoming self-sustaining. _
> 
> _ I hope that you will think of me fondly as Tantabus guards your slumber. I have left Deepnest to wipe out the infection at its source. I don’t know if I will survive the ordeal, but I will try my hardest to return to you and Deepnest someday. If I do, I will likely not be the same as you remember me to be. But I will always love you. _
> 
> _ Do not come after me. Where I go, you cannot follow. Stay safe, and know that no matter your feelings about me, I will always love you, dearest Hornet. _
> 
> _ Your sister, _
> 
> _ Wasp _

Hornet was really crying now. She didn’t understand everything the letter was saying, but she did know that Wasp had left on some dangerous adventure to stop the infection, and that even though Hornet had ignored her for months, Wasp still loved her and called her sister.

She ran crying to her mother, who also seemed shocked at the letter’s contents. They both went to Wasp’s workshop in the back. They went inside for the first time in a good, long while and blanched.

The place was a mess. Blueprints and what looked to be the scribblings of a madman lined the walls and floor. Odds and ends spilled off the battered desk and were shoved in boxes and on haphazardly carved shelves, but what really caught their attention was the massive stone sphere in the back of the cave.

It hummed with raw power. On the front of it was carved the word ‘Tantabus’ in fancy looking lettering.

Off to the side was a large pile of stuff that was organized much more neatly than everything else in the cave. A sign hung above the entire pile. ‘For Hornet’ it said.

They picked their way through the mess and Hornet saw the things were all in her size. Dozens of cloaks, most of them her favorite red, but a few in other colors were folded neatly.

Hornet picked one up at random, and she could feel the love and care woven into every stitch. She’d started her weaving lessons recently, and while she wasn’t as good as a real weaver due to her lack of legs, she still held all the same knowledge.

Spells were woven into the fabric of this cloak. A lot of spells. Hornet could spot the shimmering silver thread near the hem. More of Wasp’s strange runes that no one could read, but they felt powerful.

Dozens of little gadgets and magical devices were packed neatly in boxes, all of them complementing Hornet’s budding combat style.

After maybe half an hour of marveling, mother led her inside and presented her with a breathtakingly gorgeous Needle, the handle wrapped in a familiar red ribbon.

Mother explained that Wasp had made it for her very early on into her self-imposed work binge. She also gave Hornet another letter, this one even more emotional than the first one.

In it, Wasp explained that she was genuinely sorry that she had to leave Hornet alone for any length of time, and said sorry about a million times, and begged for forgiveness and for Hornet to not hate her, but that she would understand if she did.

She talked about all the adventures they’d go on when she got back, and about how sure she was that Hornet would be an amazing fighter and an even better leader.

Dozens of ink drawings spilled out of the stuffed envelope as well. They were gorgeous and Hornet cried harder at how much love her sister had poured out onto the pages. She was confused as to why Wasp never seemed to age in any of the pictures, but then recalled how she had said if she wasn’t sure she’d survive ending the infection in the first letter.

That just made the context of the drawings even more depressing, and mother had to spend a long time calming her down and plying her with honeyed tea.

Hornet gazed at the pictures and felt something in herself harden. Her resolve maybe. Time to stop being a sad sack and actually do something about it.

“Mother, I want to start combat training for real. No more baby stuff. Wasp is out there somewhere, stopping the infection all alone. She doesn’t know how to ask for help so I’m not gonna wait around while someone else does all the work. I’m gonna get real good, and then I’m gonna go find her and help!” Hornet declared, staring her mother down so that she’d know she was serious.

Mother merely smiled, “That’s my girl.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay so first is herrah's perspective, which is pretty obviously happening at the same time as wasp's nearly year-long work binge. 
> 
> the perspective of the rest of deepnest happens at the same time as well, except for the last part where they encounter tantabus. that obviously happens after it was activated and takes place over the course of a few weeks.
> 
> radiance happens right after tantabus was activated and a bit after that where wasp stole the dreamnail
> 
> Pale king happens just before tantabus got activated and slightly after its been on for a bit. noka left deepnest just before it got turned on, so by the time he got to the white palace, tantabus had been active for hours and the dreamnail had gotten yoinked a few hours before he even set foot in the palace
> 
> hornets happens just after wasp has activated tantabus, stolen the dream nail, and left on her big adventure


	12. And They Call Her Dovahkiin, Dragonborn!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> now we get wasp's perspective on the dreamnail heist. tantabus continues to be best bean, and they wanna make their momma proud. wasp takes off to go enact the first steps of their master plan, and things continue to move in the background.

Wasp fell asleep on the floor of Tantabus’s drive core quickly. She felt a presence near her in that dark place between waking and true sleep. Tantabus. She felt it cradle her before feeling a great sense of acceleration, and her world exploded into light.

Wasp immediately cast ‘Sneak: 100’ and the world became hazy, like everything was boiling hot and had heat waves coming off of it.

Hopefully the moth bitch hadn’t noticed her presence. Wasp had no idea if the lamp could, like, feel her mind or whatever, but as much stealth as possible couldn’t hurt.

She had a Dreamnail to hunt down.

* * *

The Dream Realm was such a trippy place to navigate. Gravity seemed inconsistent at certain points, and the ground was liable to disappear at any time. It really was a place built for creatures with wings.

Wasp didn’t have any wings, which she thought was bullshit. So many different insect species had wings, but she was one of the lucky few, she guessed. She couldn’t leave though, not until she found the Dreamnail, or got caught by the moth bitch and got booted out again. She hadn’t yet encountered the overgrown lamp yet, though. 

She really hoped she could find the Dreamnail and then blow this popsicle stand. Deepnest had been blessedly dark, a thing that her Void-based body really liked.

The Dream Realm felt like being out sunbathing too long. Her soft grub skin felt too tight and slightly irritated at all the light, even though she was transparent and the light couldn’t touch her. More magic bullshit no doubt.

The blinding light of dreams and the dark of the infinite Void did not get along at all. Wasp wished she had wings to make this whole bullshit part of the adventure go faster. Progress was so slow!

She was kicking herself for not thinking to create a set of buffed-up Monarch Wings or something. She’d have to do that after she woke back up, along with other useful gadgets like a Mantis Claw and stuff like that before she took off, not that such things would have really helped her right now. All her shit had been left behind in the physical world.

Her combat arsenal of spells was vast, since she had anticipated this whole thing being combat-heavy. After she left Deepnest, her first stop was the Junk Pit to hopefully find the Godseeker and get the Godtuner, where she could then enact Plan A.

If she couldn’t find the Godseeker, then Hard Mode it was. Plan B had a lot more room for failure and was actually really time-sensitive and dependent on a lot of other factors she couldn’t control, but it was all she had.

* * *

Wasp paused as she felt the irritating prickling of light against her skin grew more intense. She stopped and warily looked around. Her only defense against the Radiance right now were her spells, and her Soul was limited. Because it was just her mind that had been sent into the Dream Realm by Tantabus, she had none of her equipment with her.

Well, her only defenses were her spells and whipping out more memories of gross porn to get the moth to leave her alone or boot her out again, but then she’d just have to try again, this time with the moth bitch being aware of her presence, so best not to get caught.

The Radiance flew by off to her right, some distance away, right before stopping to examine something. Wasp froze, not daring to move a muscle just in case the lamp could sense her somehow. The Radiance didn’t move though, she was staring quite intensely at something, looking...sad? What?

Wasp’s insatiable curiosity compelled her to creep closer, coming up behind the Radiance. For some reason, the moth’s presence seemed to stabilize things slightly. The ground felt much more solid underneath her feet.

The particular platform she was on ended slightly behind the Radiance, but Wasp was able to lean slightly to the side to see around her skinny knife-legs.

_ Holy shit it's the Dreamnail! Score! Now I just need to wait for the bitch to leave and I can yoink it and get the hell out of here! _

“Ah, Radiance, you sentimental old moth...they’re all gone...none left to remember you, much less wield it. Perhaps I should move it somewhere else more secure…” The Radiance said.

_ No! Nonono! I need that! Okay, new plan, get this bitch to move and then jump the gap and grab it and hope my galaxy-brain can figure out how to use it to cut my way out of the Dream Realm before she recovers!  _

_ Well, it worked out pretty well last time, and if ain’t broke, don’t fix it! _

Wasp determined that she had enough Soul for a few spells, as long as they weren’t any of the Soul-hogs she had access to.

Wasp selected the perfect spells and then enacted her plan. She dropped the invisibility spell, which actually had the side effect of shielding her from the Radiance’s perception apparently, because she startled and whipped around to face Wasp even though she had her back turned and didn’t actually have eyes in the back of her head, as far as Wasp knew.

_ Shit, quick, do it now! _

“YOU--!” The Radiance screeched.

Wasp cast one of her favorite spells.

“Fus-Ro-DAH!!” Wasp shouted. From her tiny form came black waves of immense pressure, which worked to great effect on a flying target. The Radiance was sent flying backwards, screeching in surprise, flipping ass over teakettle, but Wasp wasn’t watching.

The instant the Radiance was out of her way, she threw herself onto the platform containing the Dreamnail and grabbed it. She held it above her head, willing it to work, and the glorious little contraption delivered.

An ethereal blade made of slightly pinkish light formed from the end like a lightsaber, and from the corner of her eye, Wasp could see the Radiance right herself and come rushing back towards her.

She brought the blade down and couldn’t help but shout a parting one-liner as her mind was sucked out of the Dream Realm and back into the physical world.

“I’ll be back!” Wasp threatened, right before she vanished from the Dream Realm.

* * *

Creator Wasp jolted as she sat up on the stone floor of Tantabus’s drive core. Clutched in her hand was the Dreamnail.

“YES!! Fuck yes, now I can finally get this shit-show on the road! Tantabus, you beautiful, glorious bastard, I love you so much!”

The Tantabus was startled at her outburst, and then proud at the praise.

“I am happy to help you, Creator Wasp,” It replied.

“I just need to make a couple last-minute inventions, and then I’m off to save the goddamn world!” Creator Wasp ran up and hugged its semi-solid smoky form before bolting out the door to her workshop, not bothering to close the door.

She grabbed a few chunks of stone out of a box and cast a few spells. Creator Wasp’s claws glowed with magic and she used her brute strength to shave off parts of the rock until it was a smooth dome with a flat bottom. She then used her claws to inscribe a complex series of runes, occasionally looking in a book as a reference.

Tantabus watched its creator work with a frenzied fervor. Creator Wasp was so smart, but so, so stressed. It would do its best to make sure she had as little to worry about as possible regarding Deepnest.

Though Tantabus was only meant to be an ethereal guardian, it reached out with its senses and connected to the humming web of magic it could feel woven throughout Deepnest itself.

The Wall, it was called. A series of increasingly deadly magical defenses and deterrents designed to repel mere trespassers and serious invaders alike. It had a few basic automatic functions, but it was not alive like Tantabus was, so it felt no remorse as it tore apart the coding and rebuilt it to allow Tantabus to control the whole thing remotely and tap into its systems.

It didn’t remove the manual controls of course, but now it could activate and run the defense systems if Herrah was ever unavailable or incapacitated. Deepnest would be kept protected and guarded at all times. 

Tantabus would make sure of it.

Creator Wasp trusted it to protect her precious mortal family and her home, and so it would do everything it its not-inconsiderable power to do so.

A few hours had passed since Tantabus’s activation, and Creator Wasp was finished with whatever she was making. The small stone dome now sat between her shoulders and she had another, much smaller stone disk on her chest.

Tantabus didn’t know what they were for, but it wasn’t its place to ask.

“Alright baby, I’m gonna seal your core now, and I’m gonna go off on a big goddamn quest to save the world. I know I can count on you to keep everyone safe, and I trust you’ll do a fantastic job. I’m already proud of you, you helped me retrieve the Dreamnail, and I’m sure you’ll make me even prouder. 

Hopefully this isn’t goodbye, but just in case it is, remember that the circumstances of one’s birth are irrelevant, but it is what you do with the gift of life that determines who you are. Momma loves you, be safe, and remember to enjoy life where you can. I’ll come back as soon as possible,” Creator Wasp said, before she shut the door to its core and engaged the locking protocols.

Tantabus was in awe. Its creator was so wise and compassionate! It would not let her down, not when she trusted it so much. It felt pride at a job well done for helping its creator to retrieve such an important item.

It let its semi-physical form dissolve, since there was no longer anyone around to see it, and it tapped into The Wall to monitor everyone. No one was asleep yet, so it occupied itself with streamlining and optimizing the functions of The Wall while tracking Creator Wasp’s progress. 

She stopped briefly in her mortal sister’s room before leaving without notifying anyone. She sped through the tunnels of Deepnest at a truly impressive pace before she vanished from Tantabus’s perception through one of Deepnest’s upper entrances, the one that led to the Fungal Wastes.

The Tantabus turned its attention back to watching everything else and tweaking the defenses. Deepnest would be secure in her absence. Strangely, the tram system to the Ancient Basin was active. Such a thing was a security risk, and it wasn’t supposed to be on in the first place, so Tantabus deactivated it again and sealed the door shut.

While it was forbidden from stopping a Deepnest citizen from leaving, the borders were supposed to be closed anyway, so no one was supposed to be travelling. It was odd, but the tram system showed it had only made one trip leaving Deepnest recently.

Either way, the tram system was closed and sealed properly now. Only those with authorization from Queen Herrah could use it now, so nothing would be breaching the borders that way.

It turned its attention to other, more important things. It had a lot of work to do. It decided to start by turning The Wall's defences against all the infected creatures in Deepnest. 

It left the infected Villagers alone. They were contained away from the rest of the population in specialized cells anyway, just in case a cure was discovered in time to save them.

While Tantabus could not cure the infection, it could block the Radiance’s connection, leaving the infected individuals to sit around, not reacting to anything without orders from the Radiance.

It hoped that Creator Wasp killed the Radiance in time to save them.

* * *

Wasp shrieking in delight as she tried out her new wings. 

_ I’m fast as fuck, boi! _

She sped through the tight passages, ignoring any and all wildlife. The Dirtcarvers couldn’t touch her in the air, and Wasp was having the time of her life!

She decided to exit Deepnest through one of the upper entrances, the one that led to the Fungal Wastes. From there she could make her way through the area, cutting through the Mantis Village just a bit until she reached the entrance to the Royal Waterways from the area where you got the Dashmaster charm.

She would pick that up too, just to see how charms worked. At the start of the game, the Knight started with three charm notches, and Wasp wondered if she could figure out how to bootleg the effect of more charm notches.

Being able to load up with basically every charm in existence sounded broken as all fuck, so she really hoped she could.

_ There is no kill like overkill, and when everyone else seems to be cheating, why shouldn’t I? _

She’d just use her stealth spell and ninja her way through the Mantis Village with no one the wiser. Then she just had to make her way through the Royal Waterways and search the Junk Pit. 

Hopefully the Godseeker’s giant, disrespectful ass was there, or Wasp was gonna freak out and destroy shit. The Junk Pit was full of excellently smashable things, after all.

Wasp came up on the tunnel that exited into the Fungal Wastes. The air gained a slightly yellowish haze, and the first time she inhaled, she choked. Her concentration shattered and the ethereal wings she’d built dismissed themselves.

She hit the ground and rolled for a bit, bruised but otherwise unharmed and she hacked her non-existent lungs out. The air was absolutely choked with spores! How could anyone stand to live here?! 

She coughed a bit more before she wised up and just slammed her vents closed and kept them closed. She had a habit of breathing automatically unless she was extra tense, probably a subconscious holdover from when she did actually need to breathe.

Her chest spasmed a bit as her body continued to try and expel the spores, like when you inhaled a tiny bit of water, you wanted to hack and cough, but you could kinda force yourself not to if you only inhaled a tiny bit.

It was like that, and Wasp’s immediate need to cough slowly decreased. She’d wait until she was in an area with cleaner air to clear out whatever space or pseudo-organ functioned as her lungs now.

It was hella uncomfortable, but she just had to deal with it for a bit. She activated what she called the ‘Empress Wings’ since they were a superior version of the Monarch Wings.

If she fed a tiny amount of Soul into them, she could fly continuously. The wings were made of Soul and were totally intangible to anything except air, so she didn’t have to worry about them being damaged.

She started them back up again and flew through her way through the mushroom-lined tunnels, spotting the occasional infected creature here and there. 

_ I wonder if the Traitor Lord is infected yet? It was implied that he gave himself over to the Radiance willingly. I wonder what she offered him. Power, maybe? Whatever, doesn’t matter. I won’t be going deep enough into the Mantis Village to find out. _

Once she started getting closer to where she thought the Village was, she activated her stealth mode. She flew right over the heads of a couple of totally clueless mantis. She couldn’t help but imitate the sound of blowing a raspberry at a pair that were just standing around.

Apparently, blowing a raspberry was some kind of grave insult in Mantis culture or something, or maybe the pair already disliked each other, because they immediately began accusing and yelling at each other.

They actually started fighting one another, and Wasp had to land because she was laughing too hard at the entire thing to keep flying straight. She had instigated a fistfight by blowing a raspberry, and neither of the idiots knew it was her!

_ Oh my god, that is the funniest shit I’ve seen in far too long!  _

She eventually got a hold of herself and flew off towards her objective, still chuckling occasionally.

* * *

Unfortunately the entrance to the Royal Waterways was one of those one-way walls you could only get past from the other side. Or it would’ve been, if this had been in the game. Fortunately this was real life for her now, and Wasp was buff as fuck, so a well-placed Juggernaut Charge into the wall solved her problem nicely.

She quickly retrieved the Dashmaster charm, and gave it a quick once-over before stowing it away with all her other kit. The thing was way more complicated than she anticipated, so she left it for later. Not like she really had any use for it anyway, she didn’t have the Mothwing Cloak.

She probably could have invented a dash spell, but she was already so light on her feet, she saw no reason to.

_ Again, I’m fast as fuck, boi! I don’t need no stinkin’ charm or cloak! My thunder thighs are better anyway! Note to self: see if I can snap necks with my thighs, Black-Widow style. The Marvel character, not the spider. _

Back on track, once she was in the dank tunnels of the Waterways, she opened her vents and proceeded to hack out a massive cloud of yellow spores.

_ Holy shit, that’s so gross! I swear to fuck, if I start growing mushrooms in my lungs because of this, I’m re-inventing napalm and burning the Fungal Wastes to the ground! I refuse to end up like those poor sods from that one vault from Fallout! I am not turning into a plant-person! I fucking refuse! _

She started making her way through the tunnels, glorying in their dark dankness. 

_ On that note, if Godseeker isn’t down here, I’m re-inventing napalm and burning the Junk Pit to the ground! Don’t think I won’t! Don’t test me bitch, because I won’t hesitate! _

She knew she would likely encounter them down here, but she still nearly shit herself when a Flukemon came charging around a corner at her, making the single most disgusting set of noises she’d ever heard. It was like someone was making out with a bowl of wet jello...very loudly. 

She shrieked in surprise and wasted no time in retrieving her trusty club and smashing the Flukemon into the floor, splattering guts and hemolymph everywhere. Every part of it was crushed; no reanimating halves for the Flukemon when there weren’t any halves left intact.

She kept her club out after that.

_ Man, I’ve really gotta give this thing a name! All legendary weapons need names! _

Then Wasp had a thought that made her laugh uproariously.

_ Oh my god, I’m naming it ‘Raid’, because it kills bugs dead! Holy shit I’m brilliant! After I save the world, maybe I could become a comedian! Although, no one would get my jokes but me...aaaand now I’m sad. Again. Fuckin’ A. _

She smashed her way through several more Flukemon and a couple of Flukefey before she finally managed to locate the Junk Pit. It was much larger in person than she thought it’d be.

_ This is gonna take a while, isn’t it? _

She let out a huge sigh before descending into the mess, using her club liberally to smack and smash shit out of the way, steadily growing more frustrated when she failed to find the Godseeker. So frustrated in fact, that she failed to notice the steadily increasing stench or the sound of footsteps behind her.

* * *

“Arg! Where are they! Stupid fucking timelines, not matching up! First the Seer and now this bullshit!”

“Well now, that’s no way for a young lady to speak!” A jovial voice said.

Wasp whipped around, startled.

_ Oh sweet fuck, that’s Ogrim! Where the shitballs did he come from?! Oh, wait...just answered my own question. Nevermind. Wait, his armor’s still white! Oh shitfuck, that means he’s still one of the Five Great Knights, and thus loyal to the Pale Fork! Oh shit, I’m so fucked! I can’t kill him, that will just make things worse for me, and Ogrim was like the only genuinely happy character in the game! I like Ogrim! _

Frantically trying to come up with a solution, her brain-to-mouth filter suffered a fatal glitch and she blurted out the first thing that came to mind. 

“Bitch, who’re you callin’ a lady? I’ll speak however I damn well please!”

She fucking hated it when people got on her for her language just because she had a vagina. She still hated it even though she didn't technically have a vagina anymore. Like, if they just didn’t like swearing, that was fine and she’d do her best to watch her mouth because she tried to respect people’s boundaries and shit, but getting on her for her language because she was female, or seemed female? Kindly fuck right off, please and thank you.

Ogrim seemed startled at her hostile response, and Wasp just started running with it, sort of hoping to get him to leave before he realized who she was.

“Kindly piss right off, sir! I don’t have time for you, but I’m down to throw hands if it’s a fight you’re looking for!” She spat, puffing up and adding on a hiss near the end for good measure.

Ogrim seemed even more startled at that, looking like he didn’t know how to respond. If there was one thing she learned from living in Hallownest, it’s that bug instincts were much stronger than a human’s were, and certain bugs would respond in certain ways to certain things.

One of those things was predatory behavior. If you puffed and postured like a predator, certain bug species were more likely to back down and beat a hasty retreat, though it was considered quite rude to do so in public. 

Wasp had lived with nothing but predators for months. She could hiss and spit with the best of them.

“Woah there, little one, no need for hostilities! I’m just here to help, are you lost? Where are your parents?” Ogrim asked, looking concerned. 

_ Does he even realize who I am? I thought wanted posters would be plastered everywhere with my face all over them! Maybe he’s just clueless?  _

Then she realized she could plant the first seeds of doubt in his mind about the Pale Fork, but doing so would alert Ogrim to who she was. Decisions, decisions...well, he’d already seen her, and he’d likely remember or realize that she was wanted by the state later, anyway.

“If you're asking about my worthless biological parents, they’re both probably chilling in the White Palace right now, torturing my sibling into thinking they’re not a person with feelings and thoughts just like the rest of us. If you’re asking about the family that actually loves me, they are well aware I’m out and about and are very supportive,” Wasp said.

“What?” Ogrim said in confusion.

_ Oh, for the love of…! _

“Are seriously that unobservant? I would think my face would be plastered up and down the kingdom by now! You even saw me as I made my escape from certain death at the hands of the Pale Asshat!”

“Hey, show some respect to your king!” Ogrim yelled, seeming highly offended on his behalf.

“He’s no king of mine! I don’t bow down to child murderers! Or did he neglect to tell you that part?”

“What are you talking about? The King is no murderer!”

“Oh yeah? Fucking try telling that to the thousands of dead babies discarded and forgotten in a mass grave at the bottom of the world! Oh, the king probably told you all that he only ever ‘created’ a few of us, didn’t he? He told everyone I was just a failed machine! 

Well, fucking guess what?! He fucking LIED! He created us all right! All parents create their children, but they usually don’t have thousands of them only to kill them all off in a despicable attempt to save their kingdom from a mistake they made ages ago that came back to bite them in the ass!” Wasp was truly pissed off now. She was pissed at the Wyrm for his treatment of Ghost, of all her siblings. She’d avenge them all one day, when she grew strong enough to swallow his light and utterly crush him like the bug he was.

Ogrim looked like he’d been slapped with a fish. “What? You lie, the King would never do such a thing!”

_ Oh my god this is pointless! He’s got his head shoved too far up the Pale King’s ass to see reason. It’s probably why he smells like shit all the time! _

“Believe me or don’t, I literally do not give a single, solitary fuck. What I do care about is what you’re going to do right now. In case you haven’t noticed, I’m the ‘Flawed Vessel’ he wants to kill so bad. Newsflash, that’s a shitty title, my name is Wasp, I’m female, and you’d better not fucking forget it! So, are we duking it out or not? If we are, I’d like to know so I can beat your ass like a drum and get back to trying to stop the infection!”

* * *

Ogrim was so, so confused. First, he’d heard the Flukemon becoming agitated, and then many loud impact sounds. He’d left his little area and began investigating. It was pretty rare, but sometimes wanderers accidentally found their way into the Waterways and became lost.

Then, he’d gone searching, and found a trail of gory remains of Flukemon that had been crushed completely. He’d never seen anything like it. It looked like Hegemol had decided to use them for target practice with his mace!

Then, he’d followed the trail, only to stumble across a tiny grub in the Junk Pit. They sounded female and were strangely fit, and spoke very well for how young she appeared to be. She also had quite the mouth on her! If Ogrim’s mother had ever caught him spewing such curses, she’d have washed his mouth out with soap!

Ogrim _hated_ soap.

He tried to gently reprimand her, and she whirled on him looking very startled. She looked oddly familiar…

Then she started spewing even more vitriol in his direction, hissing and spitting like the citizens from Deepnest did when they were angry!

Ogrim was shocked and didn’t quite know how to react.

What followed was one of the most alarming, curse-filled, and confusing conversations he’d ever had the displeasure of having!

The grub made outlandish claims about the King murdering children, and then she claimed to be the Flawed Vessel and Ogrim didn’t know what to think. The King told him he’d only made a few Vessels and that this one was a dangerously flawed prototype that had escaped, but she didn’t seem like a broken machine at all! 

She just seemed like a grub. A very muscular, very foul-mouthed grub, but still just a grub. He tried his best to de-escalate the situation. There was some sort of creature or person smashing Flukemon flat, and he’d rather have this conversation somewhere safer.

“I do think that we’ve gotten off on the wrong foot. I am Ogrim, the White Defender of Hallownest, and why don’t we all just calm down and talk this out? There’s something dangerous in the tunnels smashing Flukemon, and it’s not safe down here for children. Why don’t you come with me and we’ll go somewhere safer and we can get this whole thing resolved peacefully?” There, that was nice and diplomatic.

“Okay, first off, nice to meet you, Ogrim, I’m a big fan, but let me get a few things straight. I AM the dangerous thing in the tunnels smashing Flukemon, I’m not a child even though I look like one, and even if I was, I’d know better than to wander off with a stranger. You wanna talk? Then we’ll do it right here, right now.”

Again, Ogrim didn’t quite know how to respond to that, but if she was willing to talk, then they’d talk.

“Alright then, we can talk here. Why were you so hostile? You made some pretty serious accusations against the King and some pretty outlandish claims. Bugs rarely do such things without a good reason, so what is your grievance with him?”

“Okay, I guess I’ll have to start from the beginning. Do NOT interrupt me, or imma lose my chill. I’ve been waiting forever to tell anybody this shit. I’m Wasp, and besides the Pure Vessel, I’m likely the only surviving offspring of the Pale King and the White Lady. They had thousands of kids together, and he threw all of our eggs into the Void Sea, located at the lowest point in the kingdom. 

I hatched first, and inherited a fucked-up version of the Pale King’s foresight. I saw a future where the kingdom was totally fucked, and like everybody was gone, but I learned so much. I learned about the infection and what was causing it, and how to stop it. I also learned that the Pale King had a plan to stop the infection, but it was doomed to failure and would result in the deaths of all my siblings bar one, along with the deaths of most everyone currently residing in the kingdom. 

Well, two siblings technically, but that’s not the point. The point is that the Pale King is a lying liar who lies, and he sucks dong.

I managed to use my newly-acquired knowledge to escape my birthplace and certain death at my sire’s hands. He sacrificed us all to the Void Sea, to make us hollow and capable of containing the infection, but it doesn't work that way. 

Like, if he wanted a mindless shell of a living being, he could’ve just waited until we were all teenagers and then stuck us in a shitty customer service job for a couple of months. Actually, now that I’m thinking about it, killing most of us was probably the more merciful option.

Anyway, he wasn’t expecting me at all and I managed to escape with my life through the power of surprise and also this stick I found. Unfortunately, there was nothing I could do to save my thousands of younger siblings, and aside from one, he killed them all for not being hollow, the absolute rat bastard.

I escaped and grew strong, and now I’m on a self-appointed quest to kill the source of the infection. The infection’s source is a goddess of dreams called the Radiance. She’s a massive fucking bitch and also a giant prude. 

If she ever visits you in your dreams to try and infect you, just think really gross thoughts and shove any pornographic memories you have at her, and she’ll run away screaming like the little bitch she is. It’s honestly pretty hilarious, actually.

Anyway, long ago, when the kingdom was first being formed, there were a tribe of moths that lived on top of Crystal Peak, just doing their own thing and vibing with the Radiance, who at that point was pretty chill too.

For whatever reason, they stopped worshiping the Radiance and began worshiping the Pale King, because fuck religious loyalty, apparently. The Radiance was slowly wiped from public record and memory, but she grew pissed at being forgotten and is forcing bugs to acknowledge her by causing the plague, like a slighted teenage girl on social media.

I can stop her. I have plans in motion, but I’m missing a few crucial pieces. One of those pieces might be in the Junk Pit, but I’m not certain. Now that you know the truth, what are you gonna do with it?” The tiny grub, Wasp, explained.

Ogrim was stunned. That was a ton of information to have dropped in his lap. If what Wasp said was true, the King was not the man Ogrim thought him to be…

“...I think I need to go sit down…” He managed to say. He walked over to a corner and sat down against the wall, head in his claws.

* * *

_ Well, I wasn’t quite expecting that, but whatever. He’s not trying to kill me or immediately turn me in, so back to looking for the Godseeker. _

* * *

Ogrim watching in flabbergasted amazement as Wasp smashed apart piles and towers of trash, seemingly looking for whatever it was that would help stop the infection.

To think that the whole thing was caused by a slighted goddess…

Wasp was much, much stronger than her tiny form would suggest. She easily lifted containers that even Ogrim would have trouble with! She seemed even stronger when she wielded her club, sending chests flying across the Junk Pit to land in the waters far away.

He pondered what he was going to do, when Wasp shouted in joy. Ogrim looked up, and saw Wasp doing a silly little dance, seemingly in victory over uncovering...a coffin?

Ogrim got up to get some more answers.

* * *

_ Yesyesyes!! Godseeker! Plan A is now underway! First thing, get this stupid lock off. It’s a regular old lock and key type deal, so imma just yank that shit off. Bullshit strength for the win! Again! Holy hell I love not being a wimp anymore! _

“I take it that this is what you were looking for?” Ogrim said from behind her.

“Shit on a stick, don’t scare me like that! Goddamn! But yeah, this is what I was looking for. I know it looks like a sarcophagus, but the bug inside isn’t dead. They’re part of a race called the Godseekers, and by using an artifact of great power that I stole from the moth bitch, I can access their hivemind.

Their whole species only has a single physical individual at a time. The rest reside inside the head of the physical one. An entire race of bugs that live in the mind of a single individual. Talk about a headcase, amiright?

Anyway, their whole shtick is worshiping and attuning themselves to gods, and through them, I can get at the Radiance and kill her for good, ending the infection. I don’t have all the tools necessary to kill her right now, but I can get started collecting them after I free the Godseeker. 

Can I trust you to not turn me in? I can’t save anybody if the Pale King offs me for the absolutely heinous crime of fucking existing, so what’s it gonna be, Ogrim?”

* * *

Ogrim was conflicted at the moment. But...as far as he’s aware, the Flawed Vessel was wanted for escaping custody and not much else. Judging by her story, Wasp hadn’t actually done anything worthy of punishment. Yes the King wanted her recaptured...but why?

If the King found out he’d met Wasp and hadn’t turned her in or apprehended her, he’d likely be charged with treason. But if Wasp was telling the truth, then she was an innocent child, and so was the Pure Vessel.

Ogrim made his decision and hoped he wasn’t making a huge mistake. 

“You have given me much to think about. I need to double check some things before I can truly believe your story, but for now...no, I will not turn you in.”

Wasp nodded and reached out and destroyed the lock on the coffin with her bare hands. By the King’s light, she was brutally strong. Ogrim wouldn’t want to fight her. 

He’d seen how casually she’d just slapped heavy chests around like they were pillows. It would be like fighting Hegemol but with Dryya’s agility. That sounded like a nightmare, truly.

The chains wrapped around the coffin flew off, and the top half of the coffin exploded away. The top half of an enormous bug wearing a strange, ornate mask was revealed, just before they fell forward and flopped onto the ground, barely conscious. 

A small golden device clattered away from them and Wasp immediately scooped it up and tucked it away...somewhere. Her cloak didn’t have pockets, so where…?

“Fuckin’ A. Do me a favor and don’t tell anybody about the Godseeker. Imma bounce. I’ve got gods to kill.”

With that declaration, Wasp pulled out an odd device that seemed like a strange sword hilt. It lit up with a blade of light and she struck the barely-conscious bug with it. There was a flash of light, and when the spots cleared from Ogrim’s eyes, Wasp was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yay! ogrim is here! I hope i did his character even a tiny bit of justice, but in a game where we get very little interaction with most of the characters, coming up with a voice for him is hard :(
> 
> also godseeker has been found, but not everything is gonna go according to wasp's plan A. this is the past, where a lot of previously dead characters are still alive. this will cause problems regarding the pantheons, so don't disregard plan B just yet!
> 
> ogrim is super conflicted rn. he super respects the king, but here is someone telling him a bunch of stuff, and they're telling the truth for at least some of it, by virtue of them existing and talking to him. ogrim loves kids, and part of him is desperately hoping this grub is lying or confused or sum shit, b/c if they telling the truth, then the king, who he has sworn oaths to, is a mass child murderer, and ogrim literally can't have loyalty to someone who did such a horrible thing like killing a child, much less thousands of them.
> 
> so he's letting the child go while he goes to verify the story, somehow. maybe he can get the pale vessel alone for a little chat regarding their personhood? ghost is gonna flip, they in heavy ass denial rn. 
> 
> pk sucks in my stories guys. i have nothing against pk redemption stories, i actually enjoy them, but my headcanon is that he's an absolute rat bastard who murdered children and thought it was justified. don't worry, wasp will eventually open up a massive gallon-sized can of whoop-ass right in his dumb face :)


	13. The Pantheon Of The--?! Oh, You've Gotta Be Shitting Me!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> guys, i had a spreadsheet and everything! coming up with new 'gods' to fill out the pantheon spots was hard af. wasp is gonna have a much tougher time than we all did playing through the game, RIP. 
> 
> at least she's got hax magic and her metaphorical balls are so big she has to cart them around in a wheelbarrow. she's determined to save the goddamn whole ass kingdom, even if she doesn't like PK, because there are thousands of innocent people who's lives are at stake. 
> 
> she is gonna say 'never tell me the odds' and then will proceed to metaphorically shoot a bomb down the tiny ass exhaust port and destroy the mfing deathstar.
> 
> she's gonna make this world her bitch, one way or another. this is why you don't give humans access to any kind of supernatural powers, ROB. the determined ones can and will find a way to use all the loopholes and bullshit hax to fucking wreck your shit.

“My Queen, an urgent message from the Pale Wyrm!” A Deepnest courier said, bursting in on a meeting Herrah was having with her various advisors and specialists about how Deepnest was going to operate going forward.

“Oh, what does that blasted Wyrm want now?” Herrah grumbled, taking the letter. 

She was busier than ever now. So much had happened in such a short period of time. She was busy planning out how they would clean out the area known as the ‘Failed Tramway’ to make room for more ‘greenhouses’ and spaces to raise livestock. Soon, Deepnest would be able to feed itself and stand on its own for the first time in a very long time. Herrah couldn’t wait.

Herrah opened the letter and began reading.

* * *

The advisors grew nervous as their normally quite level-headed Queen seemed to become more and more enraged the more she read. The silk-paper letter became more and more crinkled in her increasingly tight grip.

“Somebody get me Noka’s parents! As of right now, Deepnest is on high alert! No one is to venture out of the Hidden Village without my express permission! Barricade the Stagway, and get the Stalking Devout to guard the perimeter! Get my personal guards up here, yesterday! I need to go to the White Palace immediately, the Wyrm has threatened war if I do not. Noka is hereby declared a traitor to Deepnest and is to be apprehended on sight if he steps one claw back on Deepnest soil!” The Queen barked out.

Everyone startled and scrambled to obey. The Beast was out in full force right now and no one wanted to earn her ire.

* * *

Herrah could not believe the gall of the Wyrm! Well, actually she could. He’d grown even more insufferable over the years, and the infection had just made it worse.

In the letter, he’d explained that he’d gotten an ‘interesting tip’ from a ‘young weaver’ that the Flawed Vessel had sought asylum in Deepnest and found it in Herrah’s own home, against his decree. 

Since the Flawed Vessel was a wanted criminal, Herrah had willingly harbored an enemy of Hallownest. The Wyrm claimed it to be an act worthy of war if Herrah didn’t come to the White Palace to explain herself and turn the Flawed Vessel over to him.

Herrah would never turn Wasp over to that bastard, but even if she wanted to, Wasp was no longer in Deepnest. As of that morning, she had already left, and knowing how fast she was, she was probably already long gone out of Deepnest’s borders. She’d likely been gone for hours already.

After Herrah had cleaned out Wasp’s workshop of useful items and strange magical texts, the workshop’s very walls had glowed and the entrance was concealed under a semi-solid illusion spell. The entrance looked just like part of the wall now.

That gave Herrah an idea.

She barked out more orders and had her royal couriers deliver the information to everyone in the Hidden Village. Any and all magical paraphernalia Wasp had made was to be hidden and no one was to talk about any of it until Herrah gave the all clear.

The Wyrm’s racist habits were about to come back and bite him in the tail. Noka was a single teenaged weaver, and if everyone in Deepnest refused to corroborate his story, and there was no evidence to suggest that Wasp had ever been to Deepnest, the Wyrm would be unlikely to believe a word Noka said.

The Wyrm was biased against her people to begin with. He thought them to all be liars and cheats. Which, okay, she could see why he would think that; a spider’s idea of a ‘fair fight’ was much different to most other bugs’, but that was no excuse for the blatant racism and suspicion he always regarded Deepnest citizens with.

Deepnest’s trade deals and diplomatic agreements were always much more heavily scrutinized, and the Wyrm held them to a different standard than literally anywhere else.

It was infuriating for Herrah, but so far it had been all she could do to keep Deepnest’s sovereignty. He was in for a nasty surprise when Herrah arrived at the White Palace and refused to kowtow to his demands.

Herrah was going to the White Palace accompanied by her personal retinue of regular guards, as well as Noka’s parents. They were desperately missing their sick son. He’d been hit by a charging Garpede in the tunnels after he’d gotten lost one day and had suffered a terrible head wound in the process. He’d never quite been the same after that, always seeing things that weren’t there and suffering from terrible delusions.

Such a _shame,_ that.

* * *

Tantabus had been very busy lately. 

Firstly, he’d decided that he wanted to be male. It just felt right. Creator Wasp had called him a ‘beautiful, glorious bastard’, which he supposed was fitting on multiple levels. 

Creator Wasp was not married when she had created him, and had referred to him as ‘baby’ as well, so he supposed that counted as being born out of wedlock, thus technically making him an actual bastard.

‘Bastard’ was also a term usually used to refer to males when it was used as an insult. Creator Wasp had not used it in that context, but as a term of endearment. 

Tantabus found that he liked being referred to as male, since it implied that he was a person and not just an object. He wondered if Creator Wasp would be opposed to him calling her ‘mother’? He didn’t think she’d mind, she’d called herself ‘momma’ when she was saying goodbye to him, after all, so maybe it was okay?

He’d ask her whenever she got back, and she would come back, Tantabus was sure of it. She was brave and so strong, surely she’d be victorious, right? Right.

Secondly, he had eyes and ears everywhere in Deepnest now.

He could think and process things much quicker than a mortal bug, and he’d been hard at work tweaking and modifying things all over Deepnest. Mother had woven so many spells and traps throughout the very stones of Deepnest itself, that the place was practically alive in its own way.

Things and places saturated in magic, especially magic that was all geared towards a single goal, tended to take on characteristics their creators had not intended them to, but it was usually a net positive.

In a way, Tantabus _was_ Deepnest now. Through The Wall, and the ambient magic in the air, Tantabus found he had a much higher control of Deepnest than he’d thought possible.

The magic mother had woven was flexible and dynamic in a way magic usually wasn’t. The ‘rules’ as they were, were much looser when she wielded and wove magic, allowing it to grow and flex and change. The magic in Deepnest practically breathed, now.

When he heard of Queen Herrah’s plan, he’d laughed. It was mad in a way that his mother would have approved of. When she left with her guards to make for the one working tram Deepnest had, Tantabus kept the tunnels clear.

He influenced the Dircarvers into passivity and gently nudged the Garpedes to carve their tunnels elsewhere. The way was clear of dangers and Herrah’s group made it to the tram in record time and climbed aboard.

When they were all safely inside, he started the tram up without Herrah having to activate anything. They all seemed a bit startled, but Herrah just went with it, correctly guessing the ‘automatic tram’ was the result of something Wasp did.

Though he had to stretch himself a little bit to stay with them, it was manageable. He watched them disembark the tram, and he kept it on standby, just in case they needed to make a quick getaway.

Tantabus did not like the Pale Wyrm one bit. He had mistreated his mother's sibling and killed many others. If he ever dared to set foot in Deepnest, Tantabus would delight in ending him, geopolitical consequences be damned.

The Pale Wyrm coveted Deepnest, wanting to control it like he did every other tribe that lived in the area before he’d arrived. Tantabus would not let him. He’d fight with every ounce of his power to keep Deepnest safe from all threats, physical or otherwise.

_Just try me bitch, because I won’t hesitate._

* * *

Wasp was disorientated, but she’d expected the angry voice of the Godseeker. She picked herself up from where she’d landed, and looked around.

_Yep, this is definitely Godhome, alright._

Though Godhome resembled the Dream Realm, it wasn’t actually part of it. It was the mindscape of the Godseeker herself. An ethereal plane where all the other, lesser Godseekers lived.

Wasp was only mildly surprised to find she still had all of her shit with her. Seems like when one used the Dreamnail on certain targets that were awake, the whole body and all of one’s belongings were sucked into the metaphysical realm as well.

Made sense to Wasp at least. The Godseekers seemed like they had physical forms even in the mindscape of the physical Godseeker. They didn’t disappear like the Royal Retainers did when you hit them with the Dreamnail in the dream version of the White Palace in the game, so they weren’t just constructs but actual people with unique minds of their own.

_Interesting._

The Godseeker of course called her all kinds of names, but Wasp had been called much worse when she was in fucking middle school, so she wasn’t even fazed from the Godseeker’s archaic insults. 

Additionally, due to Wasp wielding the Dreamnail, the Godseeker couldn’t just boot her out like she wanted to so badly.

_Sucks to suck, doesn’t it?_

Wasp refrained from antagonizing her further at the moment though, she was a woman on a mission, and that mission was to kick ass and take names, quite literally. She arrived at the door to the first pantheon, and encountered her first problem.

She had not actually fought any of the ‘gods’ out in the real world yet, and so none of the pantheons were open to her yet. Worse, the symbols on the door to enter the pantheon were all wrong! Well, some of them were the same, but a lot of them were different.

_Well, fuck. How am I supposed to find any of these new assholes when I don’t even know who the hell they are?!_

She quickly pulled out a little journal and a pen that she’d made earlier from her hammerspace and began jotting down sketches of all the ‘gods’ she’d need to go fight before the stupid thing would unlock.

Her hammerspace was a totally bullshit ability she’d discovered by accident one day. So far, she hadn’t really found a size limit for the amount of shit she could cart around. As long as she could hold it in two hands and lift it, she could store it. 

It took a second or two to activate sometimes, especially with larger items, so while it couldn’t be used to absorb attacks or anything like that, it was still hella useful.

That had led to her absolutely fucking loading up on all kinds of useful shit. Rope, magical materials in case she had to make something on the fly, a bunch of pre-made gadgets, first aid supplies if she happened upon somebody who actually needed them, non-perishable food and water for that same reason, a map, pens, paper, and so, so many weapons.

While she still liked her club ‘Raid’ best, she had a veritable smorgasbord of others. She sorta felt like TenTen from Naruto. If she wanted to, she could just keep pulling out weapons and other shit to use as deadly projectiles during a fight.

Back to her current dilemma though, she walked down the hallway and continued jotting down sketches of each ‘god’ she’d have to find and fight out in the real world, as well as the changed names of all the pantheons, except for the Panetheon of the Sage, interestingly enough. 

“I’d just like to state that, for the record, this requirement to have already fought them once to go into the pantheons is total bullshit. If I already fought them once, why do I need to waste my time fighting the assholes again? If I fought them once and came back here, clearly that means I won the fight by virtue of still being fucking alive, so what gives?” She called out, sort of hoping the Godseeker would lose her shit now. Wasp missed being able to troll assholes on the internet, so she’d take what she could get.

“Lowly wretch! How dare thy show such disrespect to our ways! Truly, we pray that thou return to be utterly crushed beneath the might of the gods! We shall delight in thine death!” The Godseeker’s voice ran out from everywhere, absolutely furious.

“Yeah, sure, whatever. You’re gonna be waiting an awful long time for that though, cause I don’t plan on dying. Imma go out and dominate those fools, and then come back and dominate these stupid pantheons, and thanks to this little baby I stole right out from underneath the Radiance’s non-existent nose, you can’t do shit about it!”

There was a dramatic gasp and the Godseeker replied again, somehow even more furious than before.

“Thou lowest and most pathetic of worms, you dare to steal from the most Radiant of all the gods?! We shall enjoy returning Her sacred relics after we pry them from thine corpse!”

“Pfft, yeah, good luck with that. See you sorry mummified assholes later, I’ve got gods to slay.”

Wasp used the Dreamnail to create an exit for herself, and she delighted in the way the Godseeker screamed in rage as she left.

* * *

Ogrim startled when Wasp reappeared in a flash of light. He’d been tending to the form of the barely-conscious bug that had fallen out of the coffin. She seemed really out of it though, muttering about gods and lowly thieving worms and other such things.

“Okay, so I’ve got a problem, and that problem is my future vision sucks and because I got to the Godseeker so early, a lot of the enemies I need to fight either don’t exist yet or I don’t know who the new ones are or where to find them. Do any of these symbols look like anyone you know?” Wasp said, shoving a battered journal in his face and pointing at a collection of simple sketches of what appeared to be faces or masks.

Nonplussed, Ogrim looked at the various symbols and began puzzling over them. Several were circled with question marks surrounding them, so he assumed those were the ones she wanted to know about.

“Well, that one is clearly myself! And these four resemble the other Great Knights! And that one looks like the Mosskin, and that other one is the White Lady. Oh, there’s Queen Herrah, too! I don’t know who any of the others are though,” Ogrim said.

Wasp seemed startled by something and snatched the journal back to peer at it very closely.

“Well, fuck! This is way harder now! Urg! At least I don’t have to fight Hornet or Ghost...okay, so that means…” Wasp dissolved into muttering as she began frantically making several lists, seemingly forgetting her surroundings. Ogrim was about to ask if there was anything he could do to help, but Wasp beat him to the punch.

“Hey Ogrim, I know this is gonna sound really weird, but you just have to trust me when I say that I need to kick your ass for the good of the kingdom.”

_Um, what?_

“I’m afraid I don’t understand…” He began, but Wasp cut him off.

“Oh, right, okay, so in order to kill the Radiance and end the infection, I need to go fight and or kill everyone and everything on this list, but not necessarily in this order. The Godseeker needs to attune to each of these poor sods through me fighting them first, and then I can access her hivemind again and fight my way through dream-versions of everyone _again,_ and then I can get at Radiance in her most powerful form to gank her, thus stopping the infection and saving the world,” Wasp explained, which cleared up basically nothing.

_What is this grub going on about…?_

Wasp seemed to notice the expression on his face and simplified things.

“Look, I know you probably think I’m a total head-case, but I just need to fight you and then I’ll be on my way. I don’t actually think I have to kill anyone sentient on this list, just beat them in a knock-down, drag-out fight. Are you game? I’d rather us fight on semi-friendly terms, but that’s not a requirement.”

“So...you wish to spar with me?”

“No, I think it has to be a real fight. We can just go until one of us is knocked out or close to it, we don’t actually have to kill each other, I’m almost positive.”

“Well...alright then...this pit isn’t an ideal place for either of us to fight, and the...Godseeker might get injured if we battle right here. For me to fight at my full potential, we should go to my little arena. You’re not bothered by strong smells are you?”

“Actually, no. My sense of smell is all fucked up. Stuff doesn’t ever smell like it’s supposed to and I’m basically immune to bad smells. So if you’re talking about that big room full of poo you want us to fight in, yeah, I’ll need about sixteen baths after the fact, but I’ll be fine.”

“Well, let’s go then. It’s been a while since I truly fought anyone!”

“Well get ready, because I’m bringing my best A-game. The A stands for ass-kicking, by the way.”

Ogrim couldn’t help but laugh heartily at that. Wasp was a strange, strange grub, but she seemed like a good sort.

* * *

Wasp wilted when Ogrim pointed out the few faces that he knew.

_Christ on a bike, this is gonna be rough...This is gonna be about as much fun as a sandpaper dildo, isn’t it?_

_Just look at this lineup! Fucking hell! Goddammit, this is gonna suck so much dong, I can already tell. Well, at least I know what most of the symbols are now._

_Weirdly, it’s mostly the early and mid-game bosses that are missing now, go figure. Okay, so now I need to make a list of the new pantheons, except for the last one, cause I don’t know what order these motherfuckers are gonna be in, only that imunna have to fight all of them, plus a couple extras probably. God, the universe just loves to shit on me sometimes doesn’t it? Well, I suppose the ROB had to do something to nerf my awesomeness, or I’d just tear through this place like a meat grinder._

_Well, imunna do that shit anyway, but now it’ll just take longer! I hope all these fuckers are in the same places as I remember them to be. I can make a game plan to eliminate all the ones where I know the locations of, and then somehow tackle the Five Great Knights, minus Ogrim, and the White Lady. Wait, can she even fight? She’s literally just a tree. I’ll feel kinda bad if she can’t fight and I have to beat the crap outta her anyway to get the Godtuner to register her as ‘fought’._

_I’ll have to plan that carefully, I still need to get the Kingsoul charm and boogie my way down to the Abyss again to hopefully get the Void Heart and then just do all the boss rushes all at once to get them outta the way and also to practice against the harder ones in the Hall of Gods._

_Then I just do the last pantheon, hopefully Ascend to godhood, eat Abs Rad and then the Pale Dickhead before yoinking Ghost and living happily ever after with everyone in Deepnest._

_Okay, now for the pantheons…_

**Pantheon of the Masters**

Vengefly King

Gruz Mother

???

Massive Miserable Cucumber

Mosskin?

Gorb

???

Soul Warrior

Brooding Mawlek

_Boss: The Nailmasters, probably_

**Pantheon of the Sage**

Xero

???

Soul Master

Oblobbles

???

Marmu

Nosk

Flukemarm

???

_Boss: Great Nailsage Sly, probably_

**Pantheon of the Tribes**

Elder Hu

God Tamer

Markoth

Galien

Hive Knight

???

Traitor Lord

Sisters of Battle?

Stalking Devout?

_Boss: ???_

**Pantheon of the King**

Uumuu

Watcher Knights

Herrah?

Ogrim

Isma

Hegemol

Dryya

Ze’mer

White Lady

_Boss: The Pale Bellend himself, probably_

_There are not enough curse words in the world to describe how utterly fucked I am. At least I can hopefully get Ogrim outta the way right now._

* * *

Ogrim led her through the Waterways to his literal shithole of a home, and she had never been more grateful that her faulty sense of smell had carried over into her new Vessel body.

As a human, she’d always joked that her superpower was an immunity to bad smells. Sometimes she just straight up couldn’t smell stuff at all, like formaldehyde, and other times stuff just didn’t seem to register correctly in her brain.

Blood, for example, she knew was _supposed_ to smell metallic like pennies or iron, but when she smelled it, it just smelled like mint toothpaste. Like, _exactly_ like mint toothpaste, it was the fucking weirdest thing.

Most cleaning chemicals smelled like cherry cough syrup, only better somehow. She couldn’t really smell bleach though, or ammonia and a couple of other common chemicals for that matter. She’d had to be super careful when working with chemicals when she’d worked as a custodian, because if she wasn’t careful, she wouldn’t notice that the room she was cleaning wasn’t ventilated enough and inhale too many fumes.

She’d figured that one out after she’d passed out once. Scared the shit outta her boss, who was the one who’d found her there, lying on the floor in a room that reeked of cleaning chemicals.

She’d gotten reprimanded like hell for that one, but she’d gotten the day off after that and her boss had called her a cab to take her to the hospital to make sure she, like, hadn’t just given herself lung cancer or some shit.

She was fine, but the doctor told her to take it easy and to get as much fresh, clean air as possible for the next few days.

Smells that were just bad but not dangerous also didn’t bother her. Like, yeah she could smell them alright, and they were gross, but that was it. She didn’t get queasy or gag or anything, no matter how bad it was, which was weird because she’d always had a really sensitive gag reflex when she ate food.

Not for smells though, so when Ogrim led her into a tunnel that stunk of shit, she didn’t really react beyond, “Oh wow, that’s really strong.”

Ogrim seemed impressed by her supposed fortitude, but Wasp just wanted to get the fight over with. Just because she wasn’t bothered by the smell, or by literally walking through shit, didn’t mean that she liked it.

Wasp actually quite hated being dirty, but she also knew it was unavoidable. Another blessing of her new body is that she no longer produced sweat. Above nearly everything else, as a human, Wasp utterly _despised_ being sweaty. Like, dirt or gross ‘whatever the hell’ she’d been cleaning getting on her, fine, she didn’t like it but she’d work through it.

Sweat though? _Holy hell_ she hated the sensation of being sweaty so much that it was the main reason she was a wimp. Exercising meant sweating, so Wasp avoided it whenever possible. She’d get sweaty at work because cleaning shit off of stuff was hard work, but at least she got paid for that!

She’d always rush home and scrub herself whenever her shift was over, just to stop feeling like a gross sweaty monkey. Bugs didn’t sweat though, so she didn’t mind physical work anymore. She actually started seeing the appeal of physical exertion, especially since her body never seemed to get tired anymore either.

Anyway, Ogrim had led her to a familiar room covered in bug shit. He walked across the arena before facing her.

“Are you ready to fight?” Ogrim asked.

“Bitch, I was born ready! Bring it on!” She yelled in reply, readying her club ‘Raid’ and priming her Soul for offensive spellcasting.

“Very well, then! Have at thee! Aiiiii Hundaaaa!” Ogrim roared out his famous battle cry and immediately started using the terrain to his advantage.

Wasp flicked on what she’d dubbed her ‘Mage Sense’. It allowed her to see the currents of magic in the air when she focused a little bit.

Ogrim had a strange magic within him that allowed him to manipulate the dung in the room with unnatural ease. The way it wound through the environment was mesmerizing, and Wasp had to shake herself out of it so she could fight him properly.

She smashed dung balls out of the way with her club and timely applications of her intangibility. She waited until he started burrowing around underground before leaping up and unleashing her version of ‘Descending Dark’.

_I have the high ground, bitch!_

She smashed into the ground right on top of where her Mage Sense told her he was, and even though she was fighting him in his ‘White Defender’ form, he was forced out of the ground onto his rounded back, where he struggled to right himself, sort of like a turtle.

She ruthlessly took that opportunity to hit Ogrim head-on with her club. She held back of course. She didn’t want to kill him! 

He let out a choked ‘oof’ as the club struck him in the stomach, unintentionally flipping him back over. He rolled up into a ball to get away from her, but she just threw Raid at him. It spun through the air to collide with his balled-up form, launching him into the wall where he started to bounce around the room.

She dodged his flying form for a bit, before Ogrim uncurled and began launching his spike attacks.

Raid flew back into her outstretched hand and she barely managed to dodge a spike made of shit that shot out of the floor. A second one nailed her in the stomach, sending her flying backwards.

_Fuck, that hurt!_

Time for more spells, then. She launched her version of a Shade Soul at him with a cry of “Hadouken!” 

Ogrim managed to dodge it, only to get a face full of the second one, and then the third that was hidden behind the first two.

_First rule of fighting games! Always spam the shitty stunlock attack! It’s a horrible tactic unless you’re the one using it!_

He flew back into the wall and fell to the ground, but Ogrim was a tough bastard. He jumped right back up again, shouted his battle cry, and the fight continued. He refrained from tunnelling underground again, likely knowing that doing so would just allow her a free hit again.

The fight lasted a few more minutes of literal shit-flinging and clubbing people over the head. The fight was over after she’d smacked him into the wall for the umpteenth time.

“Urg, I yield! You’re very strong, haha!” Ogrim laughed.

_And this is why I like you, Ogrim! Always a good sport and just a happy guy in general! The best kind of company!_

Wasp felt a strange sensation, then. Like a bell ringing, but inside her chest and noiseless. She retrieved the Godtuner from her hammerspace, and saw that it was lit up and it hummed softly for a second before it stopped.

_Oh! It comes with an indication when it’s attuned! Awesome!_

She stored it away and walked over and got behind Ogrim and pushed on his back to get him back onto his feet, since she was too short to pull him up herself.

_Goddammit, I hate being short! I can’t wait until I Ascend and tower over everybody!_

“Ahh, that was a good fight! Haven’t had one quite like that in a while!” Ogrim said, “Feel free to come back someday, I wouldn’t mind a rematch!”

Wasp nodded. “It _was_ pretty fun! I’ve got to get going though, I’ve got a lot of targets to hunt down.”

“Good luck on your quest then, hopefully the infection can be ended without further heartbreak.”

Wasp merely nodded and spread her wings to speed through the tunnels. She needed to find a rainwater drainage pipe for the City of Tears, _stat._ She was covered in god-only-knew-what, and she wanted to get clean, like, fucking yesterday!

* * *

Herrah and her group exited the tram and began making their way to the palace. She’d briefed them all on the plan again on the ride over, and now it was _showtime._

The kingsmolds guarding the entrance let them pass without so much as twitching. Herrah hated the creepy things. Something that looked so lifelike shouldn’t be so...empty. She felt the same way about the Pure Vessel, especially now that she knew that it was actually just a traumatized child.

They were let into the throne room, and the second Noka’s parents spotted him standing off to the side, they burst into not-entirely faked tears. 

“Noka! Oh thank the First Mother you’re okay! We’ve been looking everywhere for you! We thought you’d gotten lost in the tunnels again! What if you’d gotten attacked by another Garpede?!” Noka’s mother cried, running to embrace her errant son.

“What are you talking about? I’ve never gotten lost in the tunnels or been attacked by a Garpede!” Noka protested.

“Oh Silas, his delusions are acting up again! I knew it! Oh, Noka, sweetheart, your mind is playing tricks on you, don’t you remember? You got attacked by a Garpede and hit your head so badly trying to get away. Your mind sees things that aren’t there and it lies to you, whatever you saw wasn’t real! We’ve come to take you home where it’s safe and Nana can keep an eye on you!”

“Mother, what are you talking about? I was attacked by that escaped experiment of the King’s, not a Garpede!” Noka protested again.

“Son, I know your hallucinations seem real, but it’s just your imagination acting up. If the Flawed Vessel was in Deepnest, the Stalking Devout that patrol the borders would have caught it! You’re just a bit confused, son, I know it’s hard, but just come home with us where we can take care of you. Your mother has been worried sick! Nana JoJo has been blaming herself for this whole thing nonstop! I know it’s not your fault that you wandered off chasing delusions when she accidentally fell asleep, but you’ve worried everyone with this stunt! It’s time to come home where we can look after you,” Noka’s father said sternly.

The family continued to bicker back and forth before the Pale Wyrm yelled for silence.

“Cease your bickering! Herrah, have you brought the Flawed Vessel?” The Pale Wyrm demanded.

 _No one_ commanded Herrah The Beast, Spider Queen of Deepnest. Not even him.

“Pale Wyrm, the Flawed Vessel has not set one foot in Deepnest, I would have known and ejected it from my lands immediately. Whatever outlandish stories Noka has told you are the workings of an ill mind. He suffered from a traumatic injury as a grub, and he’s never been quite the same since, always going off about things only he can see, strange voices, things like that. He’s gotten it into his head that the Flawed Vessel has been stalking him or some such nonsense. No one has seen the Flawed Vessel anywhere in the Hidden Village or anywhere else in Deepnest,” Herrah said. 

She hoped her gamble would work. If not, the Pale Wyrm would likely declare war, but for once, Herrah was confident that Deepnest would win. The Wall was a truly formidable defense system. The very stones of Deepnest would turn against any invaders. The wildlife would fight _for_ them for once, instead of against them. Traps would activate only for the enemy.

A siege wouldn’t work either. Deepnest had been _very_ busy this past year, and they had farms of their own now. They could feed themselves and were otherwise self-sufficient. Yes, food might be a bit tight before they could get all the additional greenhouses and livestock farms up, but they’d survive just fine. Some exotic goods and luxuries would no longer be available, but they could survive indefinitely now.

The Wyrm’s armies could throw themselves into the meat grinder that Deepnest itself would become, all while its citizens sat cozy in the Hidden Village, safe from harm.

 _“...What.”_ The Wyrm said flatly. Oh, Herrah was enjoying this immensely. Time to whip out the ‘big guns’ as Wasp would put it.

“Any supposed ‘information’ that Noka has told you is but the workings and imaginings of a faulty mind. Every month it is some new creature or threat out to get him. None of it is ever even remotely true. He once raved for weeks about another creature that looked just like him but didn’t speak. He almost got killed attempting to follow his delusion into a pit of spikes.”

“Noka, is this true?” The Wyrm demanded.

“No, of course not! The Flawed Vessel was living in Herrah’s house! It played with her daughter! What about all the things its made! Like the roombas and microwaves and-!”

“What, by the First Mother, is a ‘roomba’? No, your mind is playing tricks on you again, boy. Stop causing a scene and go home with your parents before I have my guards drag you back! Delusions or not, you have broken the travel ban and caused a diplomatic incident! Be glad I do not punish you further or banish you from Deepnest for this treachery! I know you are ill, but you have directly disobeyed my orders!” Herrah shouted, The Beast coming out in her tone a bit. Even the Pale Wyrm flinched back minutely. “And above all, do not insult me or my intelligence by insinuating I would let such a dangerous and volatile creature into my own home, much less let it anywhere near my daughter!”

Noka cowered back in the face of her anger. His parents began apologizing on his behalf, pleading for leniency for their mentally ill son, right on script.

The Pale Wyrm sighed angrily and clenched his fists. “ _Unbelievable._ Absolutely unbelievable.”

Herrah ordered some of her guards to escort Noka and his parents from the palace back to Deepnest.

“I, for one, cannot believe this either. You believed the word of a single child? A mentally disturbed one at that? I’d say I think you are a fool, but I already thought that from the day we first met. This just proved it. I refuse to deal with a ruler who is so easily duped. You threatened war over the stories from a child. Consider our trade deals null and void for this slight.”

The Pale Wyrm first looked angry at her insults, but then startled at her announcement.

“You do not mean that. Your people rely on trade with Hallownest to feed themselves!” He said.

“Things change, Wyrm. A fact you seem to have forgotten. While your kingdom has stagnated under your shining light, my people have grown clever in the darkness. Adversity prompts ingenuity and adaptation. Your people have grown soft and complacent with their comforts and more fall victim to the honeyed words of a slighted goddess every day.”

“How do you know about the Old Light?!” The Wyrm demanded.

“While you fear the darkness, my people embrace it. If one listens closely enough, it whispers secrets. While Hallownest has the so-called protection of you and your wife against other godly influences, my people have something else. Something better. My people sleep soundly at night, knowing the darkness protects us.”

“You mean to tell me you have found a cure to the infection? A darkness?” The Wyrm asked skeptically, seeming almost...fearful?

“No. It is not a cure, but a shield. Deepnest shall endure and weather the coming storm. Can Hallownest say the same?” Herrah asked mildly. 

She was curious as to why he seemed fearful. Tantabus had only been active for a day, but already the air in Deepnest felt cleaner. The villagers that had been infected became almost disturbingly docile, while the infected wildlife were turned on by their uninfected brethren and eliminated. 

Wasp had said that Tantabus would prevent the infection from touching Deepnest any further in her letter to Hornet, and Herrah trusted her word. She had yet to let Herrah down even once when it came to her creations.

“The Pure Vessel will contain the infection, it will not fail. You swore a magical oath that you would become a Dreamer to bind the temple shut. You cannot go back on your word without suffering the consequences.” The Wyrm said seriously.

“Of course not. I will fulfill my role as a Dreamer when the time comes, and not a second sooner. You bore me a strong, healthy heir, and so you have upheld your end of the bargain. Nothing about our deal said our kingdoms need to involve themselves with each other after the fact. 

Deepnest no longer has the need to trade silk for food from Hallownest’s larder. If you wish to renegotiate the terms of trade, I’m all ears,” Herrah had to employ many tactics to keep from visibly smiling or laughing at how boiling mad the Pale Wyrm seemed to become.

For once, she was the one who had him over the proverbial barrel. Hallownest relied on weaver silk for so much, from paper to clothes to bed sheets, all the silk came from Deepnest. Hallownest never saw the need to figure out how to produce their own or come up with substitutes, since they had assumed Deepnest would always need to rely on Hallownest’s farms to feed itself.

The Wyrm let out a _most_ uncivilized snarl of frustration before snapping out, “Fine then! If it is no longer food Deepnest needs, then what do you wish to trade for?”

Herrah was having a fantastic time! This was going even better than she’d hoped!

“I’m so glad you asked! While we do not strictly need anything at the moment, some spellbooks and other magical paraphernalia would not hurt. Rune-carving tools, mostly,” Herrah said cheerfully.

“Oh? Deepnest is not known for its mages, have some non-weavers with magical potential been born recently? Is it Hornet? She hasn’t mentioned anything of the sort during her visits.”

“As I said, the darkness whispers secrets to those willing to listen, and Deepnest is very willing to listen.”

The Wyrm looked frustrated by the non-answer, but didn’t push. He needed the silk from Deepnest, badly.

They spent the next few hours deep in negotiations.

* * *

Herrah stepped back onto the tram, which began to move automatically. She immediately sentenced Noka to house arrest for nine months, and he was forbidden from becoming a warrior after his time was up. 

Wisely, the boy didn’t protest. His parents quietly interrogated him further over in their little corner, asking him why he’d done such a stupid thing over a childish grudge. Noka only offered excuses, but no real answers.

Herrah was exhausted from dealing with the Wyrm and diffusing the situation, and then being stuck in trade negotiations for hours, but she left oh-so satisfied. 

Because Herrah was totally prepared to walk out of there with no trade deals being made at all, she was able to bargain for a much higher return on her weaver’s silk than normal. In return for spellbooks of all kinds and a litany of expensive magical artifacts and crafting tools, Hallownest would receive the regular shipments of silk, with any extra they managed to produce being bargained for luxury goods such as wood and certain spices.

The Pale Wyrm didn’t need to know that the wood and spices would be in seedling or plant form, ready to go right into Deepnest’s shiny new array of greenhouses built in the area the Wyrm had once tried and failed to build a tramway.

Once they’d gathered and collected all the seeds and specimens that they needed, Deepnest would be cutting ties with Hallownest altogether. Herrah had had it with the Pale Wyrm and his arrogance. 

Hopefully Wasp would succeed on her quest to eliminate the infection before Herrah had to be sealed away as a Dreamer, but she’d already arranged for Hornet to be looked after by Midwife while her good friend Vespa acted as regent until Hornet was old enough to take care of herself and become the new Queen of Deepnest.

Wasp’s innovations had really catapulted Deepnest above and beyond what Herrah had ever thought her struggling kingdom could achieve. Truly, she’d thought for the longest time that the Wyrm would use his influence over Hornet to strong-arm her into giving up control of Deepnest after Herrah was all but dead.

Yes, ever since Wasp had accidentally bumbled her way out of the Stagways into Deepnest, things had begun to look up for the struggling kingdom.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lol, the stuff about wasp's sense of smell not working is actually true for me. idk why but stuff just straight up does not register the way it should. 
> 
> i am also basically immune to terrible smells and have actually passed out from fumes before, only in my case it was because some fucktard spilled a bunch of chemicals on the floor and then didn't bother to clean any of it up. they just shut the door to the large cleaning closet after piling up some boxes in front of the mess so you couldn't see it.
> 
> Guess which bitch was in charge of re-organizing the closet that day? go on, fucking guess.
> 
> that's right fuckers, it was me. guess who can't detect when a non-ventilated room is filling up with potentially deadly chemical fumes? guess who that is?? spoiler alert: it's also me.
> 
> I didn't even realize something was wrong until I stood up too fast, and got super dizzy from the fumes i'd been breathing in for god-knows-how-long, and then passed the fuck out on the floor.
> 
> thankfully, my boss is a micromanaging sonuvabitch and he came in to check on my progress organizing the closet soon after, only to discover my unconscious ass on the floor. He could actually smell the chemical fume soup and dragged me outta there and nearly called 911. thankfully, i woke up before then and just called an uber to take me to the hospital. much cheaper. gotta love shitty insurance
> 
> I was totally fine btw, no lasting damage or anything, but yeah...that whole situation was Not Fun.
> 
> also herrah totally bullshitted her way outta that potential mess, and walked outta there smelling like roses. tbh pk should have verified the facts beforehand. who tf just trusts the word of a single teenager? pk was just itching for an excuse to potentially get one over on deepnest, but he got slapped with the 'No U' defense, and didn't have a comeback.
> 
> he thinks herrah's found a way to harness void to defend against the infection, and he wants that info so bad. also he totally thinks herrah's getting all these magic supplies for hornet, cause deepnest doesn't have mages, but pk is hornet's father and he's got magic out the wazoo, so she clearly inherited some of his magical talent, right? 
> 
> he's sorta right but also hella wrong. wasp's way to learn magic is much easier and more accessible so some of the younger kids are learning now, including hornet.


	14. This...What Is This...Abomination...?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> new chapter :) wasp begins her quest to fill out the pantheons. i put it in a sort of montage style, and get used to it because there's like more than 40 bosses i have to get through and id like to get this show on a the road before i die from old age, okay?!

Wasp had indeed found a rainwater runoff pipe not terribly far from Ogrim’s lair, so Wasp was doing what many humans did, and planned out her day while taking a shower. 

The sheer volume of water was immense, but Wasp was sturdy and didn’t actually need to breathe, so she stood directly under the cold deluge and scrubbed at herself with her hands, making sure no particle of bug shit was left anywhere on her body.

_ Okay, so first I should focus on taking out all the non-sentient ‘gods’, because I can just stealth mode my way in and gank them, and no one is likely to notice or care that some of the more aggressive wildlife is no longer bothering them, and then I start going after the small fry. _

_ With my wings and endless stamina, traversing the kingdom is gonna be a breeze, and probably just as quick, so location matters less than the level of attention I would attract. I’ve got some really high-profile targets on here too, so imma have to plan out the last pantheon very carefully. _

_ Thankfully, you don’t have to attune to the bosses of the pantheons in order to fight them, so I don’t actually have to throw hands at the Pale Douchecanoe just yet, or track down wherever the fuck the Nailmasters or Sly are right now. _

_ Some of the Dream Warrior bosses are still listed, so does that mean they’re already dead, or do I have to fight them when they’re still alive? As terrible as the thought is, I’m kinda hoping they’re already dead so that I know where the hell all the fuckers are at. _

_ Traitor Lord’s icon wasn’t listed as part of the other Mantis Lords, so he’s probably already split off of them. I’ll have to check the Queen’s Gardens for them, and also figure out if the Ent Wife has her half of the Kingsoul charm or if it’s in one piece. _

_ I wonder if I can just ninja my way in and knock them out with a sneak attack or if that wouldn’t count. _

_ Well, I guess the Godtuner would let me know, so that’s something to test out later. First stop is Flukemarm, since I’m already here, and it would give me a chance to test out my new spell. _

_ God I hope it works. That would just be amazing. If I didn’t want to keep all the knights alive, I’d totally use it on them! _

Wasp finished up on her improvised shower and set off to go find Flukemarm. It didn’t take her all that long, she just had to follow the increasing density of Fluke creatures.

She crawled through the gross tunnel lined with little proto-flukes or whatever the fuck they were. They looked like the maggots from her original world, but even bigger and ten times as nasty.

When she got her first look at Flukemarm she almost hurled. 

_ Good thing I can’t actually throw up anymore, because what the ever-loving fuck! _

Flukmarm was oblong and suspended from the ceiling like it was in-game, except it was covered in a thin sheen of mucus and it pulsated and twitched obscenely. It was covered in sphincters that looked like buttholes that oozed more slime.

Occasionally a sphincter would birth a proto-fluke. It would ooze down to the ground in strings of slime before it wriggled away.

_ Okay,  _ fuck _ getting anywhere near that thing, and no way in hell am I hitting that with my club. Intuition says that Raid would just get covered in slime and it would just smack Flukemarm around like a super-disgusting punching bag instead of actually damaging it. _

_ Time to see if my sticky grenades work! _

Wasp dashed into the area and ignored Flukemarm thrashing around and birthing multiple Flukefey to attack her. Wasp retrieved her bandolier of little stone spheres that she’d spelled to explode violently in many creative ways, with a variety of different detonation methods.

Her personal favorite was the timed sticky-incendiary combo. It did what it said on the tin, and considering many bugs’ weakness to fire, they were very effective.

She dodged the angry flying turnips with teeth and primed the timed sticky setting before flying up and throwing one into the organic structure that anchored Flukemarm to the ceiling.

She summoned her club and flew behind cover, crushing Flukefey as she went. She dove behind cover as the grenade exploded, to spectacular effect.

She looked up and saw that the webbing had been burnt to a crisp, along with burning the top half of Flukemarm. The entire slimy creature fell to the floor with a disgusting splat, shrieking the entire time.

The stubby little fleshy growths on its body flailed around wildly. Wasp didn’t want to hear the disgusting sound of slimy flesh impacting stone anymore so she just primed all the grenades on the bandolier to explode on impact and tossed it over her cover towards the downed boss.

Wasp cast a shield spell and hunkered down.

The explosion was much bigger than anticipated and it engulfed the entire room in a wild blaze. Her shield spell worked like a charm though, and Wasp was totally safe. She could hear the tiny squeals of the proto-flukes as they burned and burst like disgusting little sacks of pus from the heat.

_ God, that’s so fucking disgusting. I officially hate the Royal Waterways. _

She waited until the inferno had died off before dropping the spell. Everything in the room was charred to a crisp, and Wasp idly noted the attunement of the Godtuner.

She spread her wings again and swiftly left.

_ Next stop, The Crossroads! _

* * *

_ Okay, seeing the Gruzlings explode out of Gruz Mother was pretty gross in game, but in real life they looked like goddamn chestbursters. Nasty. Unfortunately, in real life enemies do not explode into piles of money when they die, so no going to Salubra to buy a charm notch to pick apart. Guess I’ll have to find one on my own.  _

* * *

_ The Vengefly King was around here last time, but of course there’s no Zote, thank god for small mercies. If I had to listen to him be an ungrateful little shit after I saved his ass every time, I’d just off the fucker myself. _

_ Oh, wait, there’s the Vengefly King. That was easy. Seriously, how does that thing qualify as a ‘god’ when I don’t? Such bullshit. _

* * *

_ Oh hey, maybe I should go grab the Bauldur Shell charm, it's pretty close to here… _

* * *

_ Wait,  _ they’re _ one of the mystery bosses?! Well, that’s one of them found, I guess. Man, the early bosses in the pantheons are gonna be a fucking cakewalk. Guess the uber hard later bosses balance things out? _

* * *

_ Well, the Brooding Mawlek wasn’t infected quite yet, which was interesting...didn’t make it any less aggressive though, that sticky acid spit is nasty. _

* * *

_ Whelp, time to move on to Greenpath! Ogrim said this symbol looked like the Mosskin, but they all look so similar, so I don’t know which one I actually need...wait, is that racist? ...And they’re people, too. I can’t kill innocent people! Please, ROB, if you have even a shred of decency or mercy, let just sneak-attack knocking them out count! _

* * *

_ Oh thank you, whoever was in charge of organizing this shit! You’re not a completely awful person, I guess. Won’t stop me from not kicking you in whatever parts will hurt most when I finally get my hands on you though… _

_ Now to just drag this poor sod off somewhere where he won’t get eaten while he’s out cold. Man, he’s gonna be so confused when he wakes up...oh my god, what if I drew a dick on his face while he was out? No, no, bad Wasp, that would be a clue, and you can’t leave evidence... _

* * *

_ Huh, so that’s what Unn’s temple looks like in its heyday. Stained glass windows are always gorgeous. I wonder how Unn’s doing these days? She still totally ignoring her followers? Ah, well, I guess it doesn’t matter. I don’t have Isma’s Tear and I probably never will, and it’s not like I NEED the Shape of Unn charm to save everyone. _

* * *

_ Okay, now to go find the Massive Miserable Cucumber, AKA the Massive Moss Charger. God, I miss Youtube. The SUPERFORGE channel was awesome…That Hollow Knight charm video he made right after COPPA came into effect was so fucking brilliant...god I wish I still had the internet...maybe that’ll be something to work on when all this shit is over. If I can’t have my old internet, then I’ll just have to re-invent it. Ha! I can still call it ‘The Web’ and have it be thematically appropriate! _

_...I wonder if memes would ever catch back on? _

* * *

_ Hey, is the Hunter around yet? Wait, there’s the entrance to his little den, maybe I’ll go sneak my way in. _

* * *

_ Okay, that was unexpected, but I probably should have anticipated that. Of course a guy who spends his time hunting and stalking things all day would be able to tell if there was someone in the room with him, even if he couldn’t see them. _

_ At least he was cool about it after the fact, and hey! He was one of the mystery bosses too, AND he was able to fill out a couple of blanks in my pantheon lineup! He gave me this sweet-ass Hunter’s Journal, too. What a nice guy! That’ll give me something to do after all this shit is over, at least. I can get a lot of them outta the way while I complete my other hit-list, too. _

_ Who knew he’d have such great respect for someone playing the part of the prey and predator, all while staying alive after all this time, even when the whole kingdom is after their head? _

_ He sure did hit like a truck, though! Good thing I have hax healing. _

* * *

_ Okay, now to go to the Howling Cliffs, there’s a couple of things I wanna confirm… _

* * *

_ Well, Gorb was already dead at this point, so that fight was piss-easy. Intangibility is fucking broken for certain fights. Now, about that lantern… _

* * *

_ Well, darn. I knew that Grimm wasn’t in the lineup, so this isn’t all that surprising, but I wanna meet him! Maybe he’ll turn up after I off the Radiance? The game implied that the Nightmare Realm and the Dream Realm used to be the same, but the moth bitch wanted all the power for herself, so maybe he’ll turn up after I kill her to talk to the new manager? _

_ I’d totally let him connect the Realms back together. It’s how it should’ve been anyways. I wonder if that will negate the necessity of his ritual? I wonder how that shit even works in real life. Like, is it him reborn into a new body, or is the Grimmchild like, his actual kid or a clone or something? _

_ Guess I’ll have to ask him if he ever turns up. Now, the only asshole left for me to gank/ambush is the Soul Warrior. I could probably take out the Soul Master at the same time, too.  _

_ It might attract attention, but the game implied he was doing some morally reprehensible things, so I’ll investigate first and totally kill him in the name of decency if he turns out to be an asshole doing black magic or whatever the Soul equivalent is. _

* * *

Wasp had never so much as seen a drawing of the real City of Tears before now, and she was blown away by the sheer size and scope of everything. While she’d not been a city girl, she was no country bumpkin either!

Her dad had been in the military for twenty years, and that meant that as a child, her family had moved often. She was proud to call herself a Navy brat, and she’d lived on the East Coast, the West coast, and had even done a short stint on Guam.

She’d actually been born in Guam, but her family moved to the East Coast mere months after she’d been born, so it’s not like she remembered any of it. It had been amazing moving back and getting to experience island life.

The scuba diving had been unparalleled, and they’d even visited Japan a couple of times, which had been just the fucking coolest thing ever. Tokyo was something else. 

The only thing she hated was how ungodly hot and muggy it always was. She was a pretty modest person, but even she walked around in booty shorts, a sports bra, and a totally see-through tank top most days, just out of necessity so she wouldn’t fucking melt.

Everyone else dressed pretty much the same way too, so nobody really gave that much of a shit. Modesty was set aside in favor of not getting heatstroke, a sentiment she totally agreed with. Also, they served milk with ice in it over there. Sacrilege, that’s what that was. 

_ Like, I get that it’s hot as fuck, but you DO NOT put FROZEN WATER in a glass of MILK. Seriously, what the fuck. That’s an insult to milk and human decency right there. If you have to, freeze some milk into ice cubes and then use those! Don’t water down the milk with plain ice cubes! _

She felt very strongly about that okay? She didn’t drink alcohol and caffeine didn’t agree with her body at all, so her beverage of choice was a nice tall glass of whole milk, locally sourced if possible, served chilled and with NO FUCKING ICE IN IT.

Anyway, the City of Tears, while it had nothing on one of the biggest cities in the entirety of her old world, it was nothing to sneeze at! It was sorta like Manhattan Island if she had to compare it to anything, only the buildings weren’t nearly as tall. Oh, they were a couple dozen stories at least, but nothing like what you could find in the Big Apple.

The streets were a bit wider too, and they were all sidewalk, basically. There were no large carts everywhere, those were mostly confined to the shipping district near the outskirts of the city, near the Stagways. 

There were a metric fuckton of bugs everywhere, though. It was fascinating how the city had been designed to accommodate both flying and ground-bound bugs. Floating platforms and archways provided spaces for flyers to rest at, and steep staircases everywhere allowed the ground-bound bugs to navigate as well.

Wasp was confused as to how any of the bugs could fly in air this wet and rainy, though. She was fine, but that was because the water couldn’t touch her ethereal wings. Were the wings of Hallownest bugs waterproof or something? Maybe it was a spell?

She was also surprised by how unbothered everyone seemed by all the water everywhere. The spiders had been terrified of a stagnant, chest-high pond, after all. Here, there were vast canals of water that flowed through the city, and no one seemed to give a shit.

Then she noticed that all the bridges and pathways were lined with very high fences and barriers, to make sure no one could fall in. Seriously, the fences were like, eight feet high, at least.

_ Ah, that explains it... _

There also seemed to be a tenseness in the air. Bugs were hurrying to and fro, keeping their heads down and trying not to attract attention. There seemed to be an unusual number of guards patrolling as well.

Probably all the stress from the infection. Reminds me of 2020. God, that was a shit year. Every month it was some new disaster. At least COVID-19 hadn’t turned people into zombies, even though everyone was sure that was going to be the next new crisis at the end of December.

It wasn’t though. Instead it had been a meteor scare, but good ol’ Jupiter had sucked the meteor into its gravitational pull. The eggheads at NASA hadn’t been 100% sure that would happen, hence the scare.

Thankfully, Jupiter’s fat ass had saved Earth’s ass, and everything had been fine. Hadn’t stopped people from insisting it was the end of the world, though. The riots had been nuts.

Her dad had just been waiting for some asshole to try and rob them. Dad had enough guns to arm the entire neighborhood, and had been just like that one Cyanide and Happiness cartoon she’d seen, entitled ‘Guns’ fittingly enough.

How’d that one line go after the guy realized his house was being robbed?

“I get to use my guns, protect my house, legally shoot a man, I can’t wait!” Right before the guy used a gun to shoot open the door to a cabinet filled to the brim with more guns.

Her dad had found it hilarious and had shown it to all his co-workers.

Anyway, he’d been on edge for weeks, just waiting for some dumbass to try something. Nobody cared about their little neighborhood out in the woods though. Wasp thought her dad might have even been a little disappointed at the lack of action.

At that point he’d since retired from the Navy, and had gotten a job as head of public safety for the local college. He didn’t like it much, mostly because the most exciting thing he got to do all day was write parking tickets, but it helped keep him busy and it paid fairly well, so he stuck with it.

Anyways, the atmosphere of the city had reminded her of how everyone had felt during the height of the pandemic, except no one was wearing masks, because this infection wasn’t really a spreadable disease, and also because bugs didn’t breathe using their faces.

Seeing all the scared bugs reminded her of why she was doing this whole manhunt in the first place, and she felt her resolve harden. She was going to save these people. The Pale Forkhead may have been a dick of galactic proportions, but these people hadn’t ever wronged her. They were innocent.

Wasp flew off to find a map. Cities this big always had maps or signs in them somewhere, and she needed to find the Soul Sanctum.

* * *

_ Ah ha! Found it! Wow, it looks kinda like a college, if that college was built using old gothic cathedrals. This place is definitely creepier than it is in-game. _

She had to intangibly pass through the locked door, the sign on it proclaimed that the Soul Sanctum was closed due to the infection.

_ Somehow, I highly doubt that. _

The air also felt...wrong. Wasp flicked on her mage sight, and was again thankful that she could no longer physically vomit.

There were vast amounts of magic swirling through the air in the place, and each and every bit of it looked like it was in agony. The magic currents jerked and twitched, like the spasming muscles of a person undergoing torture.

When she extended her senses to investigate further, she could feel that bits of the magic came from many different sources. The ‘feel’ of the Soul felt like a crowd of bugs, each of them in immense amounts of pain.

_ Okay, this place is definitely super fucking evil. Like, I’m getting Auschwitz gas chamber vibes, and I do NOT like it. People are dying by the droves here, and not peacefully. Imma fucking gank whoever is responsible, this is an atrocity. _

She kept her mage sight on, noticing that the magic woven into the walls felt especially gross...almost oily, like how used car salesmen sound when they try to sell you a piece of crap. 

It looked to be some kind of security spell or alert ward. She recognized some of the runes, but she didn’t have time to pull out her reference books and totally decipher the thing.

She could tell that that’s all it was though. No actual security measures yet, just a sort of secret doorbell or something, letting whoever laid the ward know when people passed through the doorway.

_ It’s probably linked to the Soul Master. If I activate it, what will happen? Will he send someone down to investigate and make sure nobody discovered whatever the fuck he’s doing here? Or will he come down himself? Either way, this isn’t an ideal place to fight, the room’s way too fucking small and cluttered. Hmm, will my intangibility allow me to bypass the ward? Probably not, but what if I-- _

The door behind her began unlocking, and Wasp ran over and stood in the corner of the room, out of the way. Her stealth spell was still up, of course. She hadn’t dropped it since she arrived in the city, too paranoid about being caught to dare.

The door swung open and then closed quickly, allowing two Soul Warriors to enter, and a small, struggling bug that was tied up and gagged being carried between them. The bug didn’t look infected at all. In fact, she looked like a child, just coming into her shell. The little bug was female from the looks of it, and she reminded Wasp of Hornet.

_ Okay, what the fuck is this? This better not fucking be what I think it is. _

One of the Soul Warriors went and did some weird magic hand gestures, somehow deactivating the alert ward and carrying the kidnapped bug through. Wasp followed closely behind, completely undetected.

She followed them up a spiral staircase and through a few other hallways. The disgusting magic in the air grew ever-denser before the group entered into a large chamber.

A complicated looking ritual circle was drawn on the floor, many runes scribbled around, in, and through it.

_ Okay, this is probably exactly what I think it is. Motherfuckers are probably sacrificing innocent bugs to suck out their life-force or power or whatever the fuck, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom-style. I’m totally killing all of these absolute cunts, and I’ll fucking enjoy it. Better wait until the head douchecanoe arrives, then I can take them all out at once. Guess my new spell is getting a little trial-by-fire. _

She didn’t have to wait too long at all for the Soul Master to show his ugly, bloated face. 

“Ah, excellent, you’ve found another one. She won’t be missed, will she?” The Soul Master asked.

“No, sir. We found her begging on the streets for geo. She’s a street maggot, no one will come looking for her,” One of the Soul Warriors responded. The little girl started crying, likely knowing she was about to die.

_ Oh, you absolute fuckers. You are all going to die today. Okay, ditch my first idea, I know I only came up with this spell as a theoretical concept and vowed never to use it, but the poetic, ironic justice is just too good to pass up on. So, congratulations, you absolute twat-baskets, you get to further my research into the dark side of the arcane. It couldn’t happen to a worse trio of shitstains. _

“Excellent. Put her in the circle and let’s get started.”

The Soul Warriors did as they were told, and the three of them took up positions around the circle.

“Is everyone ready to begin?” The Soul Master asked.

“Actually, now that you mention it, I  _ am _ ready to kill you all. Thanks for asking,” Wasp said, dropping her cloaking spell.

“Who are you?! How’d you get in here?!” The Soul Master bellowed, taking an offensive stance. The Soul Warriors followed suit. The little girl was watching everything with wide eyes.

Wasp stayed still, looking nonchalant, but internally she was seething and she readied her first experimental spell ‘Fist of the North Star’.

“Well, I just followed Tweedle Dumb and Tweedle Dumber over there right through the front door. Your security sucks ass, by the way. I barely even had to try. As for who I am? It doesn’t matter who I am,” She said as she cast the spell, “Omae wa mou shindeiru.”

She felt the spell activate and a power well up in her, and she moved so fast she blurred. She barely registered the shouted “Nani?!” from her two targets. She drew one of her more seldomly-used bladed weapons and horizontally bisected the two Soul Warriors in front of her before she stowed her weapon and blurred back into her previous position, looking like she hadn’t moved at all.

The Soul Master was clearly confused at whatever nonsense words he’d just heard his underlings and his opponent say, before his expression grew horrified when the top halves of his underlings slid off their bottom halves and fell to the floor with a disgusting ‘schlorp’ sound. Hemolymph coated the floor.

“W-what is the meaning of this?! What did you do?!” The Soul Master looked frightened now. 

_ Good. He should be afraid. Very, very afraid. _

Wasp was so pissed that she didn’t even realize the Void that usually sat inert in her body was thrashing and distorting her form slightly. 

To both the Soul Master and the little girl, Wasp’s form looked wispy, with her shadow seemingly growing into a large bulbous monstrosity with too many teeth and flailing tentacles.

“You have killed hundreds here, haven’t you? Sucked out their energy to bolster your own? Did you think that would have no consequences? That no one would find out?” Wasp said, taking a few steps forward and idly casting a shield spell over the little girl to protect her from any stray spells or debris that resulted from the fight that was about to ensue.

“Well, I’m here to tell you right now that the bill  _ always _ comes due, and yours happens to be very large indeed.”

The Soul Master seemed to lose his nerve and fired off a volley of sickly orange projectiles. If he wasn’t already at least partially infected, Wasp would eat her horns.

Wasp easily dodged them, but they curved in the air to follow her. She turned intangible and let the spells pass harmlessly through her form. Wasp dashed forwards and collided with the Soul Master’s form. He attempted to teleport, but Wasp instinctively flared her Void and disrupted the forming spell.

They both fell to the floor, and Wasp grabbed him by the lapels of his stupid cape and used her raw strength to throw him head-first into the wall.

The Soul Master struggled to stand upright, clutching his cracked and bleeding shell.

“W-what are you?!”

“I am lots of things. I am the last remnant of a world you shall never know. I am the twice-born and the twice-dead. I am the blessed and the damned. I am the vengeance of the forgotten, and you shall suffer as your victims have suffered. I am the last thing you shall ever see.”

Wasp grabbed onto his cape lapels again and stared into his eyes as she activated the spell she once swore to never use, deeming it too brutal. It was based off of the ‘Penance Stare’ the Ghost Rider could use to make his victims feel what  _ their _ victims had gone through.

“Look into my eyes...Your soul is stained by the blood of the innocent... _ Feel their pain.” _

The Soul Master began writhing and screaming. His flesh was engulfed in Void-black fire, burning him and leaving nothing but his empty shell behind as the shadows dragged his screaming soul down into the Abyss to be devoured by the Void Sea.

Wasp took a few steps back and sucked in air through her vents in a steady rhythm, calming herself down. That felt very strange, almost like the rage wasn’t totally her own. 

She wondered if it was the ghosts of those who had been killed in this place using her to exact their revenge. If it was, she didn’t really mind, as long as they left her alone after she killed everyone in the Soul Sanctum responsible for this abomination.

She felt marginally more calm, but still filled with rage and the desire to cleanse this place of its evil. While the Pale Worm had killed thousands of her siblings, he at least didn’t torture them before he did it and didn’t use their dying essence to power himself up. At least their deaths had been quick.

She walked over to the tied up little girl and cancelled the shield spell before summoning a small knife and slicing through her restraints, ignoring the way the girl flinched away from her.

“Come, let me lead you from this place,” Wasp said, offering out her tiny hand to the child.

The girl warily took it. Wasp pulled her to her feet and led her back towards the entrance. They didn’t encounter anyone else on their way back. Once they got to the door, Wasp punched clean through the locking mechanism before yanking the door open.

“Go. I must rid this place of its evil. Run, and do not look back.”

“Where am I supposed to go, though? My whole family fell to the infection…”

“...If you do not mind the dark, travel to Deepnest. Tell them that Wasp sent you, and you will be taken care of.”

Wasp turned around, compelled to destroy the place, but her arm was grabbed.

“W-wait! I just...wanted to say thank you. For saving me,” The girl muttered.

“You are welcome. Now go, this place will not be standing for much longer,” Wasp said.

The girl nodded and hurried off. She did not look back.

* * *

Wasp spent the next couple of hours almost in a daze. She tore through the Soul Sanctum and slaughtered every corrupted scholar there, along with countless Follies and Mistakes. She used way more magic than she should have been able to based on the amount of Soul she had access to, but some strange power filled her. 

She was now almost positive she was being halfway possessed by the angry spirits of the dead, but she also somehow knew that if she really didn’t like it, she could shake the influence off.

She didn’t expel the presences though. She wanted this place gone as much as they did, and borrowing their power made it easier for her to destroy the place. After everyone in the place was dead, she began using her Juggernaut Charge to take out load-bearing walls and smash things. 

_ Set us free...we are trapped here, in this cage...it hurts, it hurts! Make it stop! Set us free! _

The magic woven into the walls disintegrated once the structures the runes were carved on were destroyed. The tortured magic in the air seemed to grow less pained the more she wrecked the place, and she gleefully continued.

Entire rooms were beginning to collapse, and the entire building was going down. She cast a powerful, spherical shield spell and stood still as the building came down on top of her.

She used her intangibility to exit the rubble, and she felt the presence begin to leave her.

_ Thank you...thank you…no more pain...we are free...we...are...free…! _

Through her mage sight, she saw the ribbons of magic break apart into the ghostly images of hundreds of bugs. They all nodded their thanks before they slowly dissipated into nothingness. Wasp felt the magic vanish, and she slumped before reapplying the stealth spell and tiredly making her way out of the city to go find a hole in the wall to curl up in and cry for a few hours. She'd basically been tracking down bosses and fighting for a few days straight at this point, and she felt like she'd earned a few hours of rest.  


* * *

Lurien could hardly believe his eyes! The Soul Sanctum had been destroyed, and a great magic had been released. It looked to him to be a formless white fog, and he saw the Pale King’s Flawed Vessel standing amongst the rubble before the fog and itself vanished! He hadn’t Foreseen such an event, even though he’d been using his Third Eye even more than normal!

Lurien wasn’t sure what had been going on with the Soul Sanctum lately, but he’d had a feeling that it hadn’t been anything good. He’d been secretly trying to infiltrate the place to figure out what in the hell was wrong with it, but it looked like he’d been beaten to the punch!

Already, the air in the City of Tears seemed less heavy, like a great weight had been lifted from the place. He felt like he could breathe easier. Lurien didn’t know what the Flawed Vessel had done, but whatever it had been, it had been a good thing.

Regardless of his feelings on the matter though, the Pale King wanted the Flawed Vessel to be recaptured, and this had been the first time in nearly a year that he’d seen it, or heard any news about it at all, really. 

“Derfla, please fetch me my best parchment and ink, I have an urgent letter to write!” Lurien called out to his butler.

“Right away, sir!” Derfla responded, prompt as always. 

_ I really should give him a raise _ , Lurien thought. 

Derfla was very good at his job, and had stuck around even still, when Lurien had told him it was okay to go back to his home if he felt unsafe in the city due to the infection.

“Here you are, sir. I also took the liberty of bringing up your personal stamp and seal kit. I assume this letter is for the King?” Derfla asked.

“Astute as always, Derfla,” Lurien said.

_ Yes, a raise was definitely in order. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so, yeah...the soul sanctum sucks guys. don't worry, wasp fixed it! :) she only got possessed a tiny bit, she's fine! next chapter we get more hornet! :D


	15. LEEEEEROOOOY JENKINS!!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so sorry i haven't updated either of my stories in days, but real life has really been fucking me over lately. I flunked out of a bunch of my classes, thankfully I was able to withdraw from them so it didn't totally fuck my GPA, but still. 
> 
> i've decided to take a break from college until the 'rona stops butt-fucking my country. I can't do online classes, like, at all. :( also my depression came back and sucker-punched me in the metaphorical balls, so thats been great to deal with. not. i think part of it is me switching medications coupled with feeling like a gigantic failure and disappointing my parents by sucking so hard at school, so thats been great.
> 
> writing is like my one escape currently, but motivation is difficult to find so thats also great. i fucking hate not being able to get off my sad ass to do shit i enjoy, but everything just seems kinda pointless, especially with my mom constantly talking about the rapture and the end of the world and shit like that. like, why bother doing anything if i'm just gonna get beamed up into heaven away from all of the bullshit that is my life currently?
> 
> literally the one good thing that happened is that the military program my brother was going to join so he could get his ass beat into shape and become a functioning member of society will in fact be opening in January, so praise the lord for that, at least.
> 
> TL;DR: life sucks, depression sucks, school sucks, the 'rona sucks, and motivation is hard to find rn. sorry for the delay, but i hope you all enjoy the chappie :)

Hornet threw her Needle at the target again. It hit just slightly off-center and she hissed in frustration. She reeled her Needle back in using the Soul-silk line attached to the back of it. She had to do better.

Her little sister was out there somewhere, fighting the infection all by herself. Hornet had finally had her adolescent molt, and she was much taller and more physically capable than before.

She had to get good enough at fighting that mom let her go search for Wasp and help her on her quest to destroy the infection. Wasp had given Deepnest so much, and Hornet now realized how childish she’d been the past year.

Wasp had been working so hard all the time because she cared about them and wanted them to be safe. Wasp was so brilliant, and she had realized that one of Deepnest’s biggest problems was the food scarcity, and so she’d used her smarts to solve the problem.

While Deepnest greatly valued cleverness and deception, raw intelligence wasn’t really as highly regarded. They were a race of warriors and weavers, first and foremost. Hornet followed that model, but Wasp didn’t. 

She defied all logic and attempts to classify her. She was something else. Something Deepnest had never seen before, but didn’t realize it was just what the doctor ordered.

Wasp had single-handedly solved Deepnest’s biggest crisis, shortly followed by yet another miracle, Tantabus.

He protected them from the infection completely, but only within Deepnest’s borders, but Wasp had solved that problem too. Her ‘greenhouses’ were an amazing invention that easily allowed Deepnest to grow its own crops for the first time ever, even this deep underground, which meant no one had to leave Deepnest. 

The greenhouses simulated the light found on the surface, only many times stronger. The greenhouses were so bright that most Deepnest citizens who worked in them needed to wear special goggles so they didn’t hurt their eyes.

Additionally, the magic woven into the greenhouse’s design made plants grow faster. Not by a ton, mind you, but definitely enough that the quicker and more frequent harvests made up for the small size of the greenhouses.

While Deepnest was mainly carnivorous, even spiders needed a few vegetables every now and then to promote healthy growth. But the main purpose of the greenhouses was to grow enough food to raise livestock.

Tantabus really helped out there, too. His powers included the pacification of the local wildlife, and a limited amount of control over them, so the farms weren’t ever attacked by predators looking for an easy meal.

Her wards were simplistic in their design, but oh-so-brilliant.

Wasp had basically invented a whole new system of magic, one that far outperformed the slow, complicated, clunky system used by Hallownest. Wasp had broken everything down into simple commands with variables that she defined using a series of strange but simple symbols.

No one quite knew what they meant, but Hornet and her mom had cleaned out Wasp’s workshop a little and discovered all her reference books. She’d sort of translated what each set of symbols meant, and boy, were there a lot of different combinations!

There were only twenty-six different symbols, but they were all very simple to write. Mom had likened it to a strange language of sorts, but without a full translation guide, no one could really understand it.

But that was the brilliant thing about Wasp’s magic. You didn’t have to necessarily understand it in order to get it to work. As long as all the commands and variables were set up properly, it’d work no problem!

The simplicity of the system and ease of access led to many new aspiring mages in Deepnest, Hornet included.

As much as she didn’t like to think of him as her father, Hornet had inherited his magical aptitude. That fact, combined with Wasp’s strange new way of working with magic, had finally given her silk of her own.

She unfortunately seemed to take more after her sire than her mother, and she hadn’t developed spinnerets of her own after her adolescent molt. 

She’d been inconsolable for days, so sure that she’d get them, so eager to share even the smallest thing with her mother, let alone something so integral to her culture.

But Wasp had taught her that it didn’t matter what anyone else thought. If you wanted something bad enough and had the smarts, you could make anything happen.

So she’d poured over Wasp’s books and experimented for days, and she’d done what no other weaver had ever been able to accomplish: she’d figured out how to make real, tangible weaver silk out of Soul and nothing else.

The looks on everyone’s faces when she returned to the weaving classes, sat down at a loom and began making silk out of thin air, was priceless. 

Everyone had heard about her unfortunate lack of spinnerets and hadn’t thought she would return to classes, but there she was, doing the impossible and proving everyone else dead wrong, just like Wasp had. 

She’d figured out how to use her silk in active combat too, and not just use it to lay traps or make webs. The unique properties of her Soul-silk allowed her to do a number of things to it, including making it sticky or razor sharp.

She’d integrated her silk into her combat style, along with the usual weaver traps, as well as a few of Wasp’s inventions.

Now she just had to refine her skills and she’d be ready to venture out into the world and help Wasp stop the infection.

Hornet reeled in her Needle using the Soul-silk line attached to it and began running accuracy drills again. Her arms screamed at her for rest, but she didn’t stop.

She wouldn’t let her sister down. Not again.

She refused. 

She threw her Needle, and her aim was true.

_ Shaw! _

* * *

The Pure Vessel had no opinion on anything because it was Pure. It did not Think, and it did not Hope, and it certainly did not find Joy or Amusement at watching Herrah totally dominate the conversation she’d had with the Pale King days ago.

It swung its Greatnail with grace and exacting precision during training that day. It was fighting the Five Great Knights all at once today, as a sort of final test of its Purity and readiness to contain the infection.

It was nearing its full size, and it Ignored the way its limbs felt wrong, or its horns too big and heavy. Those were Thoughts, and the Pure Vessel was Pure, and did not have Thoughts.

Thoughts would doom the kingdom, and so it Did Not Think.

The fight was not difficult, because difficulty implied that it was trying, and machines did not try. There was only do or do not. There was no try.

So the Pure Vessel fought the Knights, and it succeeded, because the Pure Vessel could not fail. Failure was not allowed. Failed or broken machines were discarded in favor of a working one.

Like the Flawed Vessel. The one that had Escaped. The one that could Think. The Pale King would often rant under His breath about all the things He would do to it once He caught it.

The Pure Vessel had no Opinion on this, because it was Pure. If it was found to be Flawed, it would be replaced. That was just a fact. It was a Rule, and machines always followed the Rules.

So the Pure Vessel did not Think, or Hope, or have An Opinion on anything, because those were the Rules, and the Pure Vessel always followed the Rules, because that’s what machines did.

It Ignored the way its shoulders stiffened imperceptibly whenever the Pale King was paying attention to it, because that was an Emotion and Against the Rules.

The Pure Vessel’s Void Did Not clench in Fear or Pain whenever the Pale King ‘sparred’ with it, because machines did not feel Fear or Pain.

The Pure Vessel’s non-existent breath Did Not hitch when the Pale King described taking apart the Flawed Vessel to see what made it so Flawed.

The Pure Vessel’s hands Did Not clench around its Greatnail harder when the Pale King had it pose for its memorial statue, or when He measured it for the armor it would wear when it was time to be bound in the temple.

It would fulfill its Purpose and seal the infection away, because it Was Pure.

It Was Pure.

It Was.

  
  
  
  


(It Wasn’t.)

* * *

Wasp spent the next several hours curled up in a dry-ish drain pipe trying and repeatedly failing to process what she’d witnessed and done in the Soul Sanctum.

She’d murdered like, two dozen people, and all of them were probably evil douchebags, but still!

She had no idea what exactly her ‘Penance Stare’ spell actually did to the Soul Master, besides totally fucking killing him super duper dead.

Nevermind what happened after, where she’s 99% sure she got possessed by the spirits of the restless dead, like something straight out of Supernatural.

_ Okay, I officially hate both the Royal Waterways and the City of Tears. That was a different level of fucked. _

_ Seriously, just… _

_ Nevermind, I have more important things to worry about. Like how the fuck I’m supposed to get the Godtuner Attuned to most of the gods in the Pantheon of the Tribes without getting my ass caught by the authorities or causing problems for Deepnest. _

_ The Hive Knight and Queen Vespa are both on here, and they’re close allies with Deepnest, and I don’t wanna accidentally cause them any problems...god this sucks! _

She decided to just save those ones for last and go and track down the other gods on her list. She knew that she needed Geo, and quite a bit of it, to participate in the Coliseum trials, so she’d have to either find an alternative way to get in, or steal.

She could save the Coliseum for a bit later though. Xero was next on her list, and then a face neither her nor the Hunter recognized, but whatever it was was filling in for the Crystal Guardian, so she’d snoop around Crystal Peak, and make her way to Hallownest’s Crown, to see if the Pale Ore was there and to destroy that dumb statue of the Radiance.

She’d noticed that a lot of the bosses she didn’t recognize sort of filled in for a similar boss, so she hoped to find the Crystal Guardian’s replacement there too.

* * *

One thing she hadn’t anticipated through, was the sheer number of miners in Crystal Peak. While there were much less creatures wandering around, the number of miners more than made up for them.

Wasp had to be extremely careful she didn’t get caught, but finding shadows to hide in in a place so lit up from the reflected lights of the crystals was hard. She employed her stealth spell and used her wings when she could, but many of the corridors had low ceilings and were cramped.

She decided to make her way to Hallownest’s Crown first, then see if she could find that room that held the Crystal Heart. She wondered if the Golems were still functional at this point.

The Dreamnail dialogue you got when you hit the one that held the Crystal Heart implied that the Radiant Bitch had managed to infect them too. How though? They were machines weren’t they?

Whatever, it didn’t really matter. She’d gank the moth bitch and then nothing would be infected anymore.

A bunch more sneaking later, she’d managed to climb her way to the top of the peak and beheld the strange little huts etched with runes everywhere. At the very edge of the cliff, there was the statue of the dream queen herself.

Wasp rushed over and began checking the base of the statue, and lo and behold, there  _ was _ actually a piece of Pale Ore!

_ Fuckin’ score! I can’t actually use it to upgrade any of my shit right now, since the Pale Fuckwit still has that bounty on my head, but I can always save it for later, or maybe I can figure out how to use it myself. _

_ Now, about this butt-ugly statue...I think a similar treatment would work just as well on a statue as it did on the real thing! _

“Fus Ro DAH!!” 

The black waves of pressurized sound and Void rushed out of her form and impacted the statue like a wrecking ball. The ugly thing was blown to smithereens and the pieces subsequently launched off the side of the mountain.

She could hear the clattering of the stone chunks as they tumbled their way down the mountainside. Wasp huffed a sigh through her sides in satisfaction and turned around to leave.

She almost shit herself when the face of the Seer was, like, a foot away from hers. She reflexively threw herself backwards in a roll and drew Raid from her hammerspace at the same time.

“Oh dear, I didn’t mean to frighten you. I’m certainly no fighter myself, so why don’t you put that club away and we can talk? I’m ever so curious as to how you came across the Dreamnail when it was hidden so carefully,” The Seer said.

She sounded younger and more lively than she had in the game, but Wasp guessed that was sort of expected. The timeline of the game was one of the things she’d never truly managed to nail down, other than it had been a long-ass time.

Then Wasp realized that the Seer wasn’t in the Resting Grounds because she was hiding out up on Crystal Peak.

“So this is where you’ve been hiding, huh? Guess I can’t really blame you, everything’s kinda going to shit right now thanks to your goddess being butthurt about being forgotten. Why’d the moths stop worshiping her anyway? Was the Pale Asshole really so much better that they’d jump ship just like that?” Wasp asked bluntly, stowing Raid away again. The Seer just blinked at her, looking completely shocked.

“You...seem very well informed about the situation. And have a very odd manner of speaking. Disregarding your...colorful descriptions, your assumptions are not too far off the mark. Come with me to my home and we can discuss the details over tea.”

“Well alright then. Don’t bother making me any though. Pale Bastard couldn’t be assed to give me a mouth. Or a stomach.”

The Seer blinked at her again before seeming to peer more closely at her. She shook her head and began leading Wasp to a stone hut that seemed inhabited.

The Seer invited her in and Wasp settled herself on the squashy pillows.

“Well, now that we’re out of the howling winds, would you mind introducing yourself? You may call me Seer.”

“I’m Wasp. Uh, sorry if that statue meant anything to you, I didn’t know anyone was still living up here.”

“While I can’t say I’m happy about its destruction, I understand you hold animosity towards who it depicted. Would you mind telling me about how you came to be in possession of the Dreamnail? Though your appearance is very close, it does not match the ancient description of who would eventually come to wield it given by my tribe many centuries ago, yet destiny has seen fit to twist itself for you.”

“Who said anything about destiny? I make my own future, and I’ll be damned if I let some ethereal concept like destiny or fate keep me from doing what I please! As for the Dreamnail thing, it’s a bit of a long story, but the long and short of it is that I encountered the Radiance and she tried to get me to give myself over to her, and I told her to fuck off in the form of mentally scarring imagery beamed directly into her brain. See how much she liked getting mind raped.

The answer was not very much, and she booted me out of the Dream Realm and I never encountered her again. Guess one way to make sure she doesn’t infect your mind is to make your mind a place so nasty, she won’t wanna touch it with a fifty-foot pole. Turns out the Radiance is a massive prude and thinking about gross porn is one of her greatest weaknesses.

Honestly, the whole encounter made it into my top ten greatest moments of my entire life, just barely behind the time I beat the Pale Forkhead’s face in with my club!” Wasp said excitedly.

The Seer looked like she had no idea how to process the information that one could drive off the Radiance using the power of gross porn.

“I...see…”

“Anyway, you probably wanna know about how I got the Dreamnail right?” Wasp asked. Upon seeing the Seer’s hesitant nod, she continued, “Well later on, I figured out how to stop the infection but I needed the Dreamnail to do it, and you were nowhere to be found. I hypothesized that if you didn’t have the Dreamnail, then it must be located in the Dream Realm still. Only problem was that the Radiance didn’t wanna come anywhere near me with her powers now, so I couldn’t just wait until I got sucked into the Dream Realm again, so I had to make my own entrance.

Luckily for me and the rest of the kingdom, I am a badass with a head full of crazy ass ideas, and access to bullshit magic that lets me force my ideas into reality. I am proud to say that I have created a shield against the Radiance in such a way that she is helpless to stop it!”

“You’ve created a shield against her?” Seer said with shock.

“Yup! I named it Tantabus, and it’s adorable how much it wants to help its momma out! Couldn’t ask for a better brain-child, really. It prevents sleeping minds from entering the Dreamrealm. It catches them when they’re in that weird limbo-space in between sleeping and dreaming, meaning the minds never get to the Dream Realm in the first place and the Radiance can’t do jack shit about it. Sucks to suck, amiright?

Unfortunately its range is limited, but I’m sure I could find a workaround eventually, but taking care of the infection entirely is a better, more permanent solution.

Anywho, one of its other abilities is to launch a sleeping mind  _ into _ the Dream Realm, so even if the Radiance didn’t invite me in, I could essentially kick down the door and crash the party anyway.

I did that and snuck around for a bit, and I managed to bumble my way across it while the Radiance was busy being a sad sack staring at it. I once again used the power of surprise to my advantage against a Higher Being, blasted her fat fluffy ass outta the way, stole the Dreamnail, and got the fuck outta there before she could retailiate! 

For all their power, gods seem to suck at situational awareness and responding to the unexpected. If they employed a bit of Constant Vigilance, I’d have been fucked,” Wasp concluded.

“...You just...created a being capable of blocking the Radiance’s power entirely? By yourself? And you forced your way into the Dream Realm and just...stole the Dreamnail? Right in front of her?” Seer asked incredulously.

“Yup! Wasn’t even that hard! Well, making Tantabus was a bit time consuming and frustrating, but the actual dream-heist? Piece of cake, really,” Wasp said, puffing up a bit in pride. 

These bugs had such limited imaginations that it was kinda sad. They had access to magic and insisted it had rules and regulations and limitations and so much other bullshit that what they could actually do with it was so limited it was like looking through a keyhole.

Well, Wasp was looking through a big damn window, and she didn’t like the fact that there was glass in the way, so she kicked it in and used the shards to stab the rules in the eyes.

* * *

They talked for a bit more and Wasp ended up explaining her plans in a bit more detail; that is, hunting down a bunch of assholes and a few cool people and kicking their asses for the good of the kingdom.

The Seer almost seemed like she was just going through the motions by the end of the conversation. Whatever, it wasn’t Wasp’s fault if her brain couldn’t handle all the awesome she was dumping all over it.

Wasp eventually managed to wheedle the story of the moths outta her, and boy, it was kinda sad, and she hated the Radiance even more now.

Turns out the Radiance had linked all the moths together in a hive mind like the infected were now, only it wasn’t quite as bad. Still, it was awful for encouraging free will and individual thought, and when the Pale King had cast his magic spell of ‘everyone can think now’, it slightly disrupted the Radiance’s hive mind with the moths.

For a couple of days before everything settled back down, the moths could have different opinions and beliefs about stuff, and when the Radiance tried to use her light to draw them back in, they turned their backs and went off to the shiny new pale light that wanted everyone to think for themselves.

A few moths stayed behind of course, but the Pale King’s magic kept disrupting the hive mind to a small degree, due to the magic’s opposing purposes, and the hive-mind dissolved for good. 

Eventually, more moths left or turned their backs on the Radiance, and she took out her anger on the few that stayed, eventually killing them. When the other moths found out what had happened to their brethren, they did their best to destroy all mentions of the Radiance.

Eventually, her entire existence as a Higher Being was forgotten by almost everyone, even the non-moths who knew about her. She used the last of her power to forcibly draw in other bugs, purposefully destroying their sense of self entirely, so that the Pale King’s magic had nothing to latch on to. She forced the mindless bugs to obey her will and worship her again, this time determined to destroy the kingdom the Pale King had made in retaliation.

The Radiance couldn’t handle the idea that her way was maybe not the best or what her followers wanted, and instead of changing her methods, she doubled-down on them and scared off even more of her followers. What a control freak.

* * *

Wasp eventually left the peak and returned to sneaking her way through the mines, and eventually stumbled upon a few of the mining golems. Each one was powered by a Crystal Heart and was being directed by a miner.

Once Wasp got close enough, she could see that the faces of the golems matched the symbol on the pantheon doors.

Well, that’s another mystery solved! Now I just need to gank one, yoink myself a Crystal Heart and skedaddle my way outta here before the authorities get here! Now, what’s the best way to go about doing that?

She tried to observe the patterns of the miners, to see if she could swoop in to fight a golem while they were doing a shift change or whatever, but the miners always came to be relieved by their co-workers instead of just leaving.

Apparently the golems kinda needed to be babysat or some shit. Point was, the mines were open 24/7 and the golems were never left alone, as far as she could tell.

_ Fuckin’ A. Perfect. Whelp, guess it’s time for Plan J. _

Plan J stood for Plan Jenkins. As in Leeroy Jenkins. Plan J was essentially where she ran in screaming in a surprise bum-rush with basically no further thought past ‘run in screaming the battle cry of impulsive idiots everywhere and do my best to not die’.

Yep, everything was gonna be just fine.

She positioned herself just outside the entrance to the room where all the golems were working and dropped the cloaking spell. She wanted to have a dramatic and thematically appropriate entrance, okay?

“LEEEEEROOOOY JENKINS!!” She shouted as she blasted into the room in a burst of shadows and flailing tentacles, club raised high.

The miners all shouted in surprise as she tore across the room and took out the skinny legs of a golem by throwing her spinning club at its legs. It fell heavily on its back, and Wasp wasted no time in catching her club and spinning it up for a lightning attack.

She blasted the golem with it, causing it to spasm and smoke, before its head exploded off of it in a shower of magical sparks.

She leapt upon its smoking chest and tore out the Crystal Heart from its chest before raising it high in victory as the Godtuner hummed from inside her hammerspace.

She cackled maniacally as she used her newly acquired artifact to blast her way back down the tunnel, leaving the miners in the dust as they tried and failed to process what had just happened.

The entire encounter couldn’t have been any longer than fifteen seconds. The miners were all in various states of disbelief before the highest ranking miner began barking out orders to sound the alarms and seal all the doors. The others all scrambled to obey.

* * *

Their efforts were in vain though, as Wasp just charged for the closed doors, laughing wildly as she rode the currents of the magic pouring out of the Crystal Heart. She flew through the air right towards the closed door. Miners dove out of her way as she blasted through the tunnels.

“Don’t you know who I am?! I’m the Juggernaut, bitches!” She shouted as she activated the relevant spell while Crystal Dashing and blasted through the solid metal door like it was made of wet paper.

The sound of impact was ungodly, especially paired with her wild, cackling laughter. She blasted her way out of the mountain, flew above Dirtmouth, and cancelled the Crystal Dash just above the well.

“I have the high ground!” She shouted as she plummeted through the dilapidated well, greatly frightening various innocent townsfolk.

Once she had landed, she activated her stealth spell, and flew off to investigate the temple grounds. She was curious to see if construction had begun on the Black Egg Temple yet. If nothing was built there yet, she planned on leaving a little surprise for the Pale Fuckwit to enjoy discovering later.  


* * *

The Pale King could hardly believe the reports he was receiving. Apparently the Flawed Vessel had been spotted in multiple locations one after the other in rapid succession, after nearly a year of not one sighting. 

It had destroyed the Soul Sanctum entirely and killed everyone there, but apparently, the clean up crews had discovered the dried out husks of dozens upon dozens of bodies, each of the identified bugs having been reported missing one after another over a fairly long period of time, making most think they had succumbed to the infection.

They had actually been kidnapped and had some sort of horrid magical ritual performed on them, sucking out not only their Soul, but their very life essence. The Pale King had done some very morally questionable things in his long life, but not even he had deliberately tortured and drained dozens of bugs to increase his own power.

He was disgusted of course, and had made an announcement denouncing the actions of the members of the Soul Sanctum as well as making it seem like the destruction of the Sanctum had been due to the operation to investigate the place inadvertently setting off magical defenses that had resulted in the building destroying itself.

He needed to look like he controlled the situation. Only his loyal Watcher had actually seen the Flawed Vessel, and Lurien knew the value of discretion. The public had no reason to know that the Vessel was responsible for uncovering and taking care of that particular atrocity.

Another set of reports detailed different groups encountering the Flawed Vessel all over the kingdom. Damn, but the thing could really move! If he put the pieces together correctly, the Vessel could travel from one end of the kingdom to the other in just under a single day. Seeing as the Vessels required no food or rest, this Vessel was proving especially difficult to track down.

It had visited the City of Tears, Crystal Peak, the Resting Grounds, the future location of the Black Egg Temple, and his Root’s private gardens. In Crystal Peak, it had attacked and destroyed one of the expensive mining golems before making off with its power source, a Crystal Heart. It screamed nonsense words and phrases no one understood as it did so. The thing seemed quite mad, really.

It then desecrated a grave in the Resting Grounds before making its way to the Queen’s private gardens, where it seemed to be searching for something, but it apparently couldn’t find it. It did not go anywhere near Root herself, for which he was thankful.

Despite their recent disagreements, he still cared for her. She was his wife and life-mate, how could he not? Regardless, he sent Isma to join Dryya in guarding her. Her odd plant-based magics would give her a massive advantage in a place so flush with plant life. 

The very last report indicated that it had drawn a very unflattering picture of him on the floor of the cavern where the Temple of the Black Egg was set to be built. The picture came with a series of strange markings no one could understand, but the picture itself needed no translation.

The Flawed Vessel vanished again after that, and no more reports came in, which was frustrating. He was burning with anger over repeatedly failing to capture the blasted thing. It was clearly mad, its destinations and motives made no sense along with it continually spewing and scribbling gibberish, so how did it keep evading capture?!

Luckily the Pure Vessel’s next training session was soon, so he could hopefully work off a bit of frustration on it. It was very nearly done growing, and the Temple would be starting construction soon. He wrote out an order to destroy the crude, insulting drawing to clear the floor so that the complex spell matrices could be laid down. 

Soon, the kingdom would be saved and he could focus more manpower to capturing the Flawed Vessel that had caused him nothing but grief. He lost himself to violent daydreams detailing its eventual fate and he smiled. The real thing was likely to be many times more satisfying.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lol wasp has been a busy bee, and we got some Ghost POV finally, yay! they're not having a great time, though. PK sucks dong, but the Soul Master sucks even bigger dong. seer got given the wasp treatment and has had her shit rocked, and wasp didn't even notice that seer was trying to imply she just...made a god by herself, and then said it was only mildly difficult, and that busting into the sovereign domain of a powerful goddess and stealing her most sacred relic from right in front of her was fuckin' easy, gg. lol, wasp's selectively observant ass strikes again! :)


	16. Not Bug, Nor Beast, Nor God. I'm Just Wasp: Kicker Of Asses And Taker Of Names

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I LIIIIVE!! jk but for real, i got a bit of motivation to write, so here ya go! :) wasp utilizes her brain cell and remembers an important detail. she also finally finalizes her plans and gets to work.

Wasp was in a bit of a pickle. Of the remaining bosses she had to find and fight, she only knew for sure where Nosk was.

The others were a mystery. She could identify the symbols of the Oblobbles, which she was pretty sure were located in the Colosseum of Fools, along with God Tamer, and a few of the others.

Aside from those, she could identify Marmu, Elder Hu, Markoth, Galien, Hive Knight, Hive Queen Vespa, Traitor Lord, the Sisters of Battle, what she’s pretty sure is a Stalking Devout, one of Herrah’s loyalist followers, basically her knights, Uumuu, the Watcher Knights, the Five Great Knights, and then the fucking White Lady.

There were only two symbols she didn’t recognize, but both were in the Pantheon of the Sage, meaning she couldn’t progress through the other Pantheons until she figured out who they were.

_ Urg! This is driving me nuts! Who the fuck are these guys?! How am I supposed to figure this shit out?! Wait...how did people know who to go fight in the game? _

Then it came to her and she face-palmed at her own stupidity.

_ The Hall of Gods! Shit I’m stupid sometimes! I just gotta go into the Hall of Gods and check all the empty pedestals and they have a clue as to who and where the god in question is! Hehe, I get to go bug the Godseeker again, and I could even give the first Pantheon a try, just to see how I stack up. The first one should be pretty easy, the only ones I really have to watch out for are gonna be the Hunter, who’s fast and hits like a train, and the Pantheon boss, who’s probably gonna be all the Nailmasters at once, including Sheo. That might be tricky… _

Plan made, she added the finishing touches to her artistic masterpiece and flew off cackling. That drawing actually served two purposes, and the insulting nature of the drawing would disguise its second, hidden function.

The drawing depicted the Pale Asshole’s face, except his stupid head crown-spike things had been drawn to look like dicks. She added some extra insults written in English around it. Even though she knew no one would be able to read it, it made her feel better.

The secret of the whole thing was the complex ward drawn underneath the whole thing in invisible ink. It would only show up under a blacklight, which she knew bugs didn’t have. The ink was permanent, and drawn surrounding her caricature in a large ring shape.

The first purpose of the ward was to alert her if the Pale Bellend or Ghost got anywhere near it, meaning the sealing was about to happen. The second thing was essentially a Yu-Gi-Oh style ‘trap card’ type thing, just to give her a bit of extra time to stall or get to the sealing to stop it or something like that.

The trap was both physically and magically binding. It would stick the victims in place with strands of magic and have a bubble-like defense around the whole thing so that no one could come in to try and free the people who’d gotten trapped. 

The whole thing utilized her ‘No U’ magic reflection defense ward, so even if the Pale Dumbass tried to free himself, he’d just get whatever magic he used blasted right back into his face!

Such a thing would surely buy her a little extra time to come up with something more permanent or let her know that she needed to get her ass in gear and speedrun the rest of the Pantheons like right that second.

* * *

She made her way back through the Royal Waterways, which were blessedly free of Fluke creatures. With nothing spawning new ones constantly, the others had slowly died off from various other things, and likely Ogrim clearing the place out a bit.

Speaking of Ogrim, she wondered if Isma’s grove was a thing yet. She probably wouldn’t find anything of use there, considering Isma’s Tear likely came about long after the Knight in question had died or turned into a tree, or whatever the actual fuck had happened to her, but Wasp was a curious thing, so she decided to make a quick pit stop and scope the place out.

* * *

The grove itself was in fact there, and in much better condition to boot! The place crawled with life and greenery, and the whole thing was gorgeous really. There were even little trees! Wasp hadn’t seen a tree in ages! She wasn’t even sure if trees were a thing in Hallownest, but apparently they were.

Wasp approached one, still cloaked, just in case Isma was puttering about somewhere. While she did need to fight the Knights at some point to attune to them, she needed to plan out her storming of the White Palace very carefully so that she could flee down into the Abyss to get the Void Heart as soon as possible before going and speedrunning all the Pantheons and ganking the Radiant Bitch.

After that, her getting captured mattered much less, because if everything went to plan, she’d have Ascended and become the God of Gods and could kill anyone who got in her way by fucking sitting on them, Pale Bastard included.

The trees weren’t that tall, only a little bit bigger than the kind you’d see planted on the sides of roads and sidewalks in human cities. The trunks were much sturdier though, nearly four times as thick as one would expect for a tree that tall.

Wasp then noticed little lights shining out of the leaves. She got right under it and looked up, and noticed that there were tiny versions of Isma’s Tears hanging off of the branches!

_ Score! I’m so glad I came here! These ones don’t look full grown though, so maybe if I hunt around I can find a few mature fruits? I’d like to steal a few so I can be immune to acid when I go to fight Uumuu, and a couple extra for Hornet or Ghost wouldn’t hurt. _

_ Maybe I could save one to bring back to Deepnest to be cultivated? I don’t know if these trees need to be fed special magic or something though...I guess it couldn’t hurt to check. _

She flicked on her Mage Sight and was amazed at the currents of magic in the air. Unlike the repulsive magical currents in the Soul Sanctum, these ones pulsed and curled with life and growth very calmly. The magic felt soft and inviting, and Wasp couldn’t help but reach out with her own Soul.

The magic reacted, but not in a hostile way. At first it seemed surprised, but then it gently curled around her own, almost in a hug. If Wasp was capable of it, she’d have been crying. It felt so motherly and it made her ache with longing. 

She carefully made her way through the grove, following the magic to where it was strongest, and there, at the back of the grove, was the biggest tree. It didn’t look like it had in the game, and there was no creepy mask grown into the bark.

Its branches were laden heavily with ripe fruits, but Wasp couldn’t bear stealing any, not when the magic had welcomed her in so kindly. She’d ask, or maybe try to leave some kind of payment.

She mentally flipped through what she had lying around in her hammerspace, only to come up a bit short. She didn’t really have anything worth trading for the fruits. She only had weapons and supplies for her journey, she never really thought about bringing tradeable goods or Geo.

Perhaps if she did not currently have anything worth trading, she could make something? Inventing was her strong suit after all. She pulled out a few various odds and ends she had, along with a skein of silk that Herrah had gifted her, and she set to work.

* * *

While it wasn’t her finest work, it was certainly functional and quite pretty. It was a spell matrix she’d made that promoted plant growth. It looked like a dreamcatcher made out of a metal hoop, some carefully braided and woven silk, and a few wooden beads she’d carved out of some dead branches she’d found on the ground. 

Her amateurish magic looked kinda sad in comparison to all the plant-based magic saturating the air, but she’d tried her best and the matrix did look quite pretty. She wondered what would happen if she tried to guide some of the plant’s magic through her creation.

She gently reached out with her own Soul again and guided some of the magic through the hoop and silk like she was leading someone gently by the hand. The magic seemed hesitant at first, but once it touched the matrix, it eagerly flooded in, causing the silk to glow green and the wooden beads to sprout tiny vines that intertwined with the silk strings.

Wasp felt the magic hum in contentment and she figured that meant it liked it.

“I’m glad you like it! Is it okay if I traded it for a few fruits? Not a lot, maybe five or so?”

While she didn’t expect the magic to really answer, she thought it prudent to at least ask permission since the place seemed so alive. She didn’t want the trees to come alive and attack her in anger. Ents were no joke, and she liked being alive, thank you very much.

Instead of nothing happening like she half-expected, five fruits dropped from the tree’s branches to land neatly at her feet.

_ Okay, now I’m hella glad I thought to trade and ask permission first. This place is clearly sentient to some degree, and I doubt it would have taken kindly to me just stealing anything. _

“Thank you! These will be a big help!” Wasp said before scooping the fruits up and jamming them all into her hammerspace before flying off towards the Junk Pit. 

In her excitement, the cloaking spell slipped slightly and she had to recast it, reinforcing the spell with more Void. 

As her Mage Sight had been flicked off at that point, she didn’t see the magic recoil a bit upon sensing the Void magic being utilized.

* * *

Far away in the Queen’s private gardens, Isma flinched back and shuddered a bit upon feeling someone in her private grove. She’d sensed some kind of presence there a bit earlier, but it felt almost child-like and full of wonder.

She had no idea what a child was doing in the Royal Waterways much less her private grove, but there wasn’t much she could do so far away, so she merely tried to project feelings of safety and gentleness.

The probable-child had then crafted some sort of gift for her, one that seemingly amplified her magic! She’d never heard of such a thing but she was grateful for the gift. It strengthened the bond between her and her grove, even from so far away!

It was thanks to her newly heightened connection that she heard the child request some of her Tears. What a child wanted with them, she didn’t know, but she gladly handed over a few in return for such a useful gift.

Then, she flinched back when she sensed the presence of a great darkness, endless and hungry, and yet carefully controlled and restrained. The presence then vanished from her senses entirely, like it had never been there, despite it being in the heart of her grove!

“Isma, what is wrong? I’ve been calling your name for the past few minutes!” Dryya said with concern. Isma started and flushed a bit in embarrassment. She’d gotten so sucked into the connection that she had spaced out in the middle of a conversation with Dryya!

“My apologies, Dryya, but the most extraordinary thing just happened!” Isma said. She then detailed what had happened, much to Dryya’s shock.

“Well now, that is extraordinary! You say it felt like a child, but it had advanced magic and then seemingly vanished after you sensed a...darkness? Do you think it could have been the Flawed Vessel? Aside from the Pure Vessel, no other being or creature uses Void in such a way,” Dryya said.

“No, it must have been something else, that presence was definitely alive. It had a mind and emotions and felt like a child…” Isma said, “But it definitely used Void, I’m sure of that too. Do you think someone else has figured out how to utilize it?”

“...Isma, the King sealed the entrance to the Abyss, the source of all Void. Nothing but the King could reopen the door using the King’s Brand, but Void destroys everything not itself. It had to have been the Flawed Vessel,” Dryya declared.

“But...it felt like a child. It felt wonder and awe and a great sadness when I tried to comfort it. It created something and traded it for some of my Tears. What use would the Flawed Vessel have for my Tears? Dryya...what if the King made a mistake? What if the Flawed Vessel isn’t just a faulty machine, but something else...something alive? Ogrim has been very cagey about discussing certain things with me lately, the topic of the Vessels in particular, and he’s tried to start certain conversations with me before cutting himself off and abruptly changing the subject. It’s very unlike him, and I think he knows something the rest of us don’t,” Isma said.

“Isma, do you even hear yourself? The King wouldn’t make such a mistake! Perhaps Ogrim is just uncomfortable with the idea of the Vessels? I know the Pure Vessel unsettles me, for such a jovial soul like Ogrim, such an emotionless yet lifelike machine must unsettle him even more,” Dryya said.

“...Dryya, can you keep a secret? Even from the King?” Isma asked carefully. She worried at her claws, nervously.

“While my loyalty is to the Queen first, I would not keep secrets from the King...but if you were to tell something to your friend Dryya, and not the loyal knight, I am under no obligation to discuss my personal life with anyone,” Dryya said, carefully not looking at anything in particular.

Isma felt fondness swell in her heart and she carefully did not let anything show in her body language. Dryya was the type to put up a tough front before all but her most trusted.

“...Ogrim once tried to imply that perhaps the Vessels weren’t quite as emotionless or as few in number as we were led to believe, but when I asked him what he meant by that, he quickly denied everything and changed the subject. I’ve often caught him looking at the Pure Vessel with this odd expression on his face, but again, he denies everything. I don’t think anyone but me has noticed his behavior. He can be quite subtle when he tries,” Isma said quietly.

“...I see,” Said Dryya, equally as quiet.

The pair of friends sat in silence together for a long time after that, contemplating the quandary of the Vessels, and their King. 

* * *

Wasp stopped some distance away from the grove, and began testing how exactly Isma’s Tears worked. In the game the Knight just seemed to hold it in their inventory, and the acid immunity seemed to work just fine, but the prompt when you first obtained it said ‘Consumed Isma’s Tear’ and not simply ‘obtained’ like it did for every other important item.

The item description also said that once you ‘ingested’ it that it would grant acid immunity. Except she couldn’t eat anything and didn’t have a mouth! 

Wasp carefully slid down the wall and dipped one of her little hoof-claw things into the bubbling acid, only for the pain to immediately become apparent.

_ Fuckfuckfuck that hurts! _

She shot back up onto the ledge using her wings and retrieved some water from her hammerspace before she dumped it on her foot to dilute the acid and wash the wound out.

Black Void bubbled up from the actually-quite-serious wound, and Wasp let loose a string of vile curses in three different languages. She quickly used her Soul to Focus and heal herself. 

New chitin-Void grew over the stuff that had been dissolved by the acid, and the bleeding stopped. She focused a couple more times to fully heal the damage and then pouted.

_ So just having it in my hammerspace isn’t good enough, and I’m calling bullshit! I can’t shapeshift a mouth because my mask isn’t mutable! I could try absorbing one through my Void body, but I have a feeling that will just shove it into my hammerspace again! _

She tried anyway, and found she was right.

_ Man, I fucking hate it when I’m right sometimes! _

She puzzled over how she was going to overcome her latest problem when she remembered a dumb little Hollow Knight comic where it depicted different ways the Knight might eat a slice of watermelon.

Of the three ways shown, one involved the Knight stuffing the watermelon into their eye-holes and eating it that way, and the other was them somehow using their Focus ability to absorb the watermelon.

_ Well, I technically have one spare...If I can eat things by literally stuffing them into my face-holes, imma flip my shit. _

She took all the Tears out of her hammerspace and selected one that was thin enough to fit into the eyeholes of her mask. She’d never even so much as stuck her own fingers into the eyeholes of her mask, so she wasn’t sure what to expect. 

She went slowly just in case it turns out that she did actually have eyes so she didn’t totally jab them with a piece of fruit. It was super weird to have half of her field of vision obscured because she was shoving something into it, but nothing hurt or felt weird, and when the whole thing was in, she felt a sensation she hadn’t experienced in over a year.

Taste.

The Tear was being torn apart and absorbed by her Void and not into her hammerspace, and flavor exploded in her mind. It wasn’t a sensation from her tongue, but it seemed to come from everywhere. It was almost overwhelming.

It was very sour and acidic, like a really sour granny smith apple dipped in vinegar. 

She loved it.

The taste sensation was over way too quick for her liking, but she restrained herself from eating any more of the things. She shoved them all back into her hammerspace to remove the temptation.

_ Holy shit that was amazing! Other than the flavor though, I don’t feel any different. It didn’t seem to restore any of my Soul either, which kinda sucks, but whatever! Now I can stop feeling so left out during dinner time when I go back to Deepnest after all this bullshit is over with! _

_ Now to test if that made me acid-proof! That will actually come in handy fighting a couple of bosses, if they aren’t infected yet anyway. _

She carefully slid back down the wall to dip her hoof-claw back into the acid. She did it much more quickly this time, hoping to avoid taking too much damage if the Tear hadn’t worked.

Nothing happened.

She carefully dipped her entire foot in the acid and held it there, and still nothing happened. She continually lowered herself into the acid until she was swimming in it. It felt like being in a hot tub, bubbles and all!

She spent way too long splashing around and watching other things dissolve in the acid she was now totally immune to. She floated effortlessly on the surface like she always had. Void was less dense than water or acid, it seemed.

_ This is so fucking cool! _

She only spent a few more minutes dicking around in the previously-deadly acid before getting her butt in gear and flying off to go bug the Godseeker some more and kick the ass of the first Pantheon.

* * *

Thankfully, the Godseeker was right where Wasp left her, just chilling in the Junk Pit.

“Hey there! You miss me?!” Wasp asked as she flew over, Dreamnail in hand.

“You! Thou thief, the lowliest of worms! You dare return?!” The Godseeker said with anger.

“Yeah, I dare! I’ve been busy attuning to all the ‘gods’ and now I’m ready to kick some ass!” Wasp said.

“Come then! We will enjoy seeing the Gods crush thee, the lowliest cringer!” The Godseeker spat out.

Wasp said nothing and struck the Godseeker with the Dreamnail.

* * *

Wasp came to in a familiar place. She wasted no time in approaching the door of the first Pantheon. The chains exploded off the glowing door, and Wasp observed a few details as she approached.

There didn’t appear to be any options for ‘Bindings’ which was interesting, but she figured it made sense. This was no longer a video game, so the Godseeker couldn’t reduce the amount of damage she did with her weapons or not allow her to equip or use charms.

Wasp eagerly looked over her opposition.

**_Pantheon of the Masters:_ **

_ Vengefly King _

_ Gruz Mother _

_ Elder Baldurs _

_ Massive Moss Charger _

_ Mosskin Knights _

_ Gorb _

_ The Hunter _

_ Soul Warrior _

_ Brooding Mawlek _

  
  


No boss was listed, of course. They never were. Wasp drew her trusty club, Raid, and charged through the door.

_ This is gonna be a piece of cake for the most part! _

Her world went white and she heard the angry voice of the Godseeker.

“Wretch! Thou hast ordained thine own destruction!

Through sacred combat are We attuned to this Kingdom's greatest beings. By entering this gate thou hast challenged the very Gods of this Kingdom!

Dost thou consider thyself the equal of this pantheon, of its masters? Draw thy weapon then, fool of fools, and be damned for thy arrogance!

We cannot wait to see thou be destroyed under the might of the Gods!”

“Yeah, yeah! You hate my guts, whatever, get in fucking line!” Wasp retorted.

Her vision cleared and she stood centerstage in an area. A screeching cry drew her attention. It was just a single Vengefly King.  _ Laaaame! _

She blasted it with Void Lightning from her club and reveled in the way the thing screeched in pain before it exploded into a shower of gore. She went intangible to avoid the spray of guts.

“Next!” She yelled out. She looked over and saw the Godseeker glaring at her, but she almost seemed slightly startled at how quick the fight was.

* * *

Next was the Gruz Mother, which went in pretty much the same way. Actually, all the bosses up until The Hunter went pretty much like that. They announced themselves with a screech or a cry, or some other kind of dramatic entrance, only to get immediately one-shot by Wasp in a variety of ways.

Then came The Hunter, one of the only bosses in this Pantheon she was actually worried about. The reason the fight had been so hard last time is that The Hunter had ambushed her while she’d been invisible, catching her completely off-guard.

Not this time. This time, she started spinning up her Void Lightning the second she got punted into the arena. She didn’t even let The Hunter finish announcing himself before she was firing off spells left right and center.

Void Lightning and Hadoukens and various other magic bullshit was sent flying his way, and even he couldn’t dodge all of it. For all that he hit like a train, he couldn’t take that much punishment. He was an ambush predator after all, and those weren’t usually known for their staying power.

She probably went a little bit overboard with all the magic, but Wasp wanted to make sure she took care of The Hunter quickly.

The Soul Warrior and the Brooding Mawlek were easy as pie too, and before she knew it, she was about to face the final boss. 

Instead of immediately facing him though, Wasp found herself in the little hot springs room the Knight sometimes got to rest in during the Pantheons in the game.

She had honestly been expecting that she wasn’t allowed breaks, because the Godseeker just seemed to hate her extra. Nice to know she still had some idea of fairness. Or maybe that was just how the Pantheons were structured. That actually made way more sense.

Whatever, didn’t matter. What did matter was the pool of infinite Soul sitting right next to her. Wasp dove in and began greedily sucking it all up like a hoover. She had long since figured out how to expand her reserves artificially as well as filter Soul out of the air passively.

That meant she had insane Soul reserves for a bug her size. She had rigged a bunch of her knock-off Soul Vessels together in a big chain, allowing for near uninterrupted Soul flow, so she didn’t have to wait on the Soul Vessels to drain their Soul into her reserves to use it.

She kept this stupidly long chain of Soul Vessel wannabes in her hammerspace, where they still functioned just fine, because magic was some bullshit hax. Wasp also had a spell matrix running all the time that sucked Soul out of her surroundings constantly, so it sort of worked like a shittier version of the Kingsoul charm.

She’d figured out how to weave patterns into little dreamcatcher type things that held a spell permanently, and only needed a tiny bit of Soul to activate. That was what she had made to trade for the fruits back in Isma’s grove.

It was kind of like a gun. Instead of her having to manually fold her Soul into a spell before firing it off, she could just pump Soul into a matrix and it would fire off the spell immediately.

There were downsides though. The spells would never be as powerful, and they couldn’t be overcharged to enhance their effects. They also wore out fairly quickly. Wasp had experimented a whole bunch, but the magic was just intense and caused a lot of strain to non-living materials not meant to hold or channel Soul.

Wasp preferred to just practice until a spell was basically instinctual and she could fire one off at a moment's notice.

But for a continuous passive spell like the Soul Filter? Matrices were the way to go, 100%. That magic was fairly mild, and it didn’t burn through the matrix like an active burst-type spell would.

What that meant was that the second Wasp jumped into the pool of Soul-infused hot water, she sucked up the Soul so rapidly that the water became normal again. Her reserves weren’t even close to full at the moment, but the hot springs had restored a nice chunk.

The other lesser Godseekers all looked startled that she’d been able to hoover up so much Soul at once and not explode.

While the Soul in the water was slowly refilling, she didn’t have the patience to wait around any longer, so she got out and made her way through the door, where the head Godseeker was waiting to berate her.

“The noise of thine wriggling creates much discord, drowning out the godly resonances we attune Ourselves to!

Dost thou mean to thwart our sacred goal? Dost envy drive thou to such madness?

We pray that the Gods of this Kingdom punish thee, obliterate thee, utterly destroy thee!” She said imperiously. 

“Yeah, whatever lady. Did you not see me just tear through that Pantheon like a fat guy at an all-you-can-eat buffet? Your hot springs just juiced me up on Soul, and I can’t wait to unleash the thunder on whatever poor sod’s unfortunate enough to face me,” Wasp said.

The Godseeker looked like she was about to say something else, but got cut off when Wasp pushed past her to enter the final arena. Nailmasters Oro and Mato were there, just like she expected. She guessed that Sheo would enter the fight after she had defeated the first two, who would then gain a second wind and she’d have to fight all three of them at once.

She had a ton of Soul available to her, so she was planning on waiting until all three of them were in the area before making good on her promise to the Godseeker and unleashing the thunder. 

The whole of Godhome seemed to reside in the clouds, and that was such an electrical hazard, didn’t you know?

* * *

She rushed into the fight with her typical enthusiasm and a hearty, “LEEEEEEROOOOY JENKINS!” 

The Nailmasters didn’t waste a moment and tried to tag-team her using their signature Nail Arts, but Wasp either parried them all with her indestructible club or used her intangibility to get in close and whack them upside the head. 

She spun her club up, but instead of unleashing the building lightning, she mimicked that one move Thor did where he used the momentum of his hammer to dig the spinning thing into the ground and launch shattered chunks of stone at his foes.

It worked just as well for her, and soon Sheo dropped into the fight to join his brothers just as she unleashed her building spell.

“My power levels! They’re  _ OVER  _ **_9,000!”_ **

She thrust her club into the sky, and fat black bolts of Void-tainted electricity crashed out of the clouds to impact the area as well as the surrounding area, narrowly missing the Godseekers themselves. The ground ruptured into violent geysers of Void and Soul wherever the bolts met earth.

The Nailmasters were all struck head on, because there was no way to dodge such a large AOE attack in an arena that had exactly zero cover to hide behind.

Wasp just cackled madly as damn near half her massive reserves were taken out using a single spell, but she didn’t care at all. She was reveling in the destruction and chaos as drops of diluted Void rained from the clouds.

She tilted her head back and shrieked victory to the stormy skies.

The Nailmasters weren’t even conscious by the end of the whole thing, but she bowed to their unconscious bodies anyway, because that’s what you did.

You  _ always _ bowed to certain opponents, and the Nailmasters were one of them.

The Godseeker looked like she’d seen a ghost and was shaking in her chair. The rest of the Godseekers didn’t look much better, but Wasp wasn’t even paying attention.

She got transported back to the main area and she ran off to go find the Hall of Gods.

* * *

Back in the real world, the Godseeker coughed harshly into her hand, and when she brought her hand away, it was stained with Void.

_ O God of Rain, o God of Thunder, perhaps thou have not abandoned Us after all...merely taken on a new form? Thy wrath is familiar indeed… _

* * *

Wasp Crystal Dashed down the Hall of Gods, enjoying the way the statues burst into existence in her wake. She was so wired from that fight! She didn’t even know she could call up so much Void like that! She’d have to practice doing that again. 

Her insides felt like they were buzzing and churning in excitement, and she had a bit of a weird headache. It felt strange, but it mostly felt like when she’d been especially anxious as a human, so she knew how to breathe and get the feeling to settle down. It took a bit more trying, but it eventually went away, much to her relief. 

The first Pantheon was almost disappointingly easy, and she wondered what the snooty Godseeker had to say about her performance. She wondered if she would continued to be degraded after she’d mopped the floor so easily with all the ‘gods’ or if the Godseeker would finally realize how dangerous she was and stop insulting someone who could blast her into a different dimension of getting beat the fuck up.

Not that she would, of course. She needed the Godseeker to Ascend and kill the Radiance at the very top. Also, other than being rude, the Godseeker hadn’t actually done anything to her, so Wasp would actually see if she could do anything about avoiding killing her when she left Godhome.

While she hated people who were rude for no reason, being a rude jerk wasn’t enough to warrant death in her eyes. Her shithead brother was the one exception to that rule, but he wasn’t here for her to punch in the face, so she’d settle for knowing that she was better than he could ever dream of being.

That set her off on pondering what she would do after she Ascended. She didn’t know what being the ‘God of Gods’ meant, but the Void almost seemed like a primal force more than anything else. It had no leader or embodiment before Ghost came along in the games, and seemed to just kinda...exist.

It didn’t need worshipers or seemingly any kind of upkeep to keep existing, so what was it really? It didn’t seem to function like Unn or the Radiance or even Grimm did. They were all shown to have weakened in power over time and needed some kind of belief or worship to stay powerful.

The Void didn’t need any of that shit, it just kinda...was. Something to ponder later, maybe.

* * *

_ Okay, so here’s my boss list, along with the clues. Looks like the Pantheon of the Sage is gonna have to wait until after I get the Kingsoul. Honestly, I have to fight the Traitor Lord’s Daughter and the Abyss Creature? That seems so unfair. How am I supposed to open that door? I need all the Lifeblood Charms equipped, except I don’t even know if Joni’s Blessing even exists yet, and I still haven’t figured out how the fucking Charm Notches work! _

_ Whatever, I can probably just bust it down, drag the Abyss Creature’s sorry ass outta there and beat it within an inch of its life. If I can’t go through the door, then I’ll dig through the goddamn walls or tunnel up from underneath it. _

_ Damn bugs never seem to remember that those are always options. Whatever, their loss and my gain. Now, about that list… _

**Pantheon Bosses with Unknown Identities or**

**Uncertain Locations:**

**Traitor Lord’s Daughter**

Description: Loyal goddess of forbidden love

Clue:  _ “I await the arrival of my beloved at the village gates” _

**Marmu**

Description: Playful goddess of gardens

Clue:  _ “I await a playmate in the secret garden” _

**Nosk**

Description: Everchanging god of the faceless

Clue:  _ “I wait patiently in a dark nest of predators made passive” _

**Abyss Creature**

Description: Forgotten god of Lifeblood

Clue:  _ “I sleep in a blood-sealed tomb at the bottom of the world” _

**Elder Hu**

Description: Dreamborn god of travellers and sages

Clue:  _ “I lie dreaming in the wastes” _

**Galien**

Description: Dreamborn god of heroic hearts

Clue:  _ “I lie dreaming in darkness, surrounded by predators now made passive” _

**Markoth**

Description: Foresaken god of meditation and isolation

Clue: _ “I lie in meditation at the edge of the world” _

**The Fourth Lord**

Description: Heartbroken god of anger and grief 

Clue:  _ “I seethe at the heart of my sisters’ village” _

**Stalking Devout**

Description: Twin gods of devotion and protection

Clue:  _ “Find us at our Queen’s side, always” _

**Herrah the Spider Queen/Herrah the Beast**

Description: Revered goddess of a hidden tribe/Vicious warrior goddess of strategic battle

Clue:  _ “Find me in the heart of my dark den” _

**Hegemol**

Description: Mighty protector god of the weak and downtrodden

Clue:  _ “I guard the weak in the heart of my King’s kingdom” _

**Isma**

Description: Kindly protector goddess of the green

Clue:  _ “Find me guarding the heart of the secret garden” _

**Dryya**

Description: Fierce protector goddess of the Queen

Clue:  _ “Find me by my Lady’s side, always” _

**Ze’mer**

Description: Serious protector goddess of the loveless and heartbroken

Clue:  _ “Aiii, find ‘che patrolling the borders of where ‘che is forbidden to go”  _

**White Lady**

Description: Powerful goddess of growth and fertility

Clue:  _ “I lie hidden from my husband’s light in a place he dare not intrude” _

  
  


_ Whoo boy, what a list! Okay, this confirms a few things and tells me some new ones. Firstly, it looks like Marmu and Markoth are still alive at this point, which makes some sense, since I couldn’t find Marmu’s grave in the Queen’s Gardens. This also tells me that not all the Knights are in the same places, which sucks, but that just means I’ll have to plan that carefully and speed run them and the White Lady, which likely means I’ll have to do Isma and Dryya last, since it seems like they’re in the same places. _

_ This also tells me the Traitor Lord hasn’t yet become a traitor, and still lives in the Mantis Village, along with his daughter, who he’s likely forbidden from leaving or Ze’mer from seeing his daughter. I wonder about his title though. What’s he heartbroken over? His daughter’s choice in lover? No, that doesn’t quite seem to fit… _

_ Anyway, I’m gonna have to fight Herrah at some point, along with her guards. That’ll be interesting. Maybe I can arrange a spar or something, and she can, like, write me a note explaining why I need to spar with Hive Knight and Vespa too? Worth a shot, and maybe I can see Hornet while I’m there. I hope she’s not still mad at me… _

* * *

Plans made, Wasp set off to explore the Kingdom’s Edge. She planned to fight Markoth, and maybe point him in Seer’s direction, since they were both moths, and his Hall of Gods description made it seem like he thought he was alone or something.

Maybe she could rummage around in the pockets of all the failed Colosseum contestants and see if she could scrape together enough Geo to enter the first Trial? If she won, she’d have plenty of money to enter the second and third ones.

Next, she’d fight Elder Hu and then storm the Mantis Village and kick a bunch of ass and hopefully prevent the Tribe from schisming. Maybe she could even resolve whatever issue was keeping the star-crossed lovers apart? Ze’mer would likely be grateful, maybe even enough to not rat her out to the King once she explained the whole ‘the King is a lying liar who lies’ thing and her own existence like she had with Ogrim.

No matter how that mess went, her next stop was Deepnest, and then The Hive. After that, she’d swing by the City of Tears and fight Hegemol and make her way to the Queen’s Gardens to fight Marmu and then the two Knights stationed there before confronting the White Lady. Hopefully that would go okay and would magically involve not fighting her somehow.

She could also solve the mystery of the Kingsoul then, too. If she had a White fragment, then she’d have to yoink it somehow and go steal the other half off the Pale Fucker. If she didn’t then Wasp would just have to jack the whole thing off the Pale Fucker before hauling ass down to the Abyss to fight the Abyss Creature and get the Void Heart.

Once that happened, she just had to make it to the Godseeker, because her body got transported into the Godseeker’s mindscape and no one else had a Dreamnail, so she’d be untouchable until she emerged as the God of Gods, and then no one could arrest or capture her anyways!

Then it was game over, but in a good way! She’d steal Ghost away from the Pale Dickwad and seal Deepnest so he couldn’t follow and she and all her loved ones could live happily ever after.

She could iron out the finer details afterwards. Her being the Shade Lord was bound to open up a whole new world of magical bullshit possibilities. Maybe she could even figure out a way to kick the ROB that sent her here in the balls. Yeah, that sounded like a pretty sweet way to end the whole tragic tale.

Wasp spread her wings and made for the Kingdom’s Edge. She had work to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hehe. so, how'd you like my picks for all the gods? i like what i came up with :) also that bit with Godseeker o_O she is shooketh. its a really obscure piece of lore, but she originally comes from a place called the land of storms, and she used to worship these two gods called the god of rain and the god of thunder. they died for some reason not explained or elaborated on, and its kinda the whole reason the godseekers seek out gods in the first place. wasp showing up and pulling a thor is giving her flashbacks. 
> 
> also wasps forays into void magic are starting to have consequences :D
> 
> she's right about the void being different from higher being shit. void is like a primal force, like gravity or magnetism. its just a thing that will always exist when the conditions are right to produce it. so what happens if you give something like gravity a personification that can control all aspects of itself? big things, my dudes, big things :)


	17. Wasp Has The Power Of God, Shitty 90's Movies, AND Anime On Her Side!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> bit of a shorter one, but i wanted to get something out. wasp meets markoth :)

It took only a short jaunt back through certain parts of the Waterways to arrive in the dandruff-blown wastes of Kingdom’s Edge. Wasp resolved to check out the Cast-Off Shell while she was here. She hypothesized that the King’s Brand only appeared there after the Pale Twat-Waffle had gotten got by the Radiant Bitch.

It would still be interesting to check out nonetheless, and she didn’t even have to fight Hornet to go spelunking, either!

But first things first. Wasp pulled out the map she’d gotten from Herrah before leaving Deepnest and cross-referenced her mental map of the kingdom with it before pinpointing where Markoth had been in the game.

_ Might as well start there and if he’s not there I can start looking elsewhere, maybe where Oro’s hut is supposed to be. I wonder if the Nailmasters are actually around yet, or if they're still getting taught by Sly? _

_ Wait a minute, isn’t Markoth supposed to be hidden behind a Shade Gate? Come to think of it, I haven’t seen a single one, even when I went traipsing through the Queen’s Gardens. Maybe that was a game-exclusive thing? They didn’t make much sense lore-wise, maybe it was just a game mechanic? _

Wasp cut her pondering short as she flew into a small, familiar chamber. Markoth was indeed very much alive, and he was sitting on the ground, seemingly meditating. She remembered him being quite confrontational as a dream ghost in the game. She was cloaked, but she wondered if he’d be perceptive enough to notice her.

Sure enough, he seemed to rouse from his trance and grabbed his weapons before looking around suspiciously. 

“Who goes there? Show yourself, and die like those who came before you!” Markoth yelled in a raspy voice. He clearly hadn’t spoken in a long time.

_ Interesting, he seems to be able to sense me, but he doesn’t quite know where I am. Well, I need to fight him anyways, and no one said I had to fight fair! _

She positioned herself behind him and let off a Hadouken just to test the waters. Markoth threw himself to the left to dodge it, despite being unable to see the attack coming.

“Show yourself and fight with honor, coward!” Markoth shouted, looking very upset.

_ Can he sense my Soul, or is it my Void? _

She flew behind him again and cast one of the few spells she had in her arsenal that were purely-Void based. Most of her spells were a mix of Soul and Void, but she had a few that only used one or the other.

Her most basic attack she had that used pure Void was based off of the Pokemon move ‘Shadow Ball’. Like the attack it was named for, Wasp’s version was a condensed ball of darkness but her version exploded into liquid Void upon contact with anything solid.

The Void stuck to stuff and seemed to weaken it over time, eating away at things like acid, only much more slowly. She was sure that if she struck Markoth with one head-on, it’d kill him slowly, and she didn’t want to permanently injure him, much less kill him in such a horrible way! He’d never done her any wrong.

She aimed just over his shoulder. Even if he didn’t sense it coming and didn’t dodge, it would still miss and hit the ground in front of him.

However, the moment she loosed the spell, Markoth whipped around and flung an ethereal Nail made of Essence at her! She turned intangible instinctually to avoid it, but the sensation of the Dream Essence passing through her immaterial form still hurt. 

It was like a minor sunburn, only on the inside of her body.

_ Ow! Okay, note to self, Void and Dream Essence do not mix, and I should just dodge those the conventional way! _

It also had the side effect of disrupting her cloaking spell. Markoth clearly spotted her flickering form and was on guard, though he seemed confused at her appearance.

_ Right, I look like a freakishly muscular baby. _

Wasp dropped the cloaking spell entirely, since Markoth already knew she was there and could sort of sense her. Her Soul-based spells were mostly utilitarian, and not really attacking moves.

“What manner of being are you, to command the endless shadows so?” Markoth called out.

“The unique kind, and I’m really sorry about this, but I just need to kick your ass real quick and then I’ll never bother you again, promise!”

Markoth looked a bit poleaxed at her declaration of intent, but soon raised his guard.

“If it is a battle you seek, I shall gladly cut you down!” He yelled out as he began launching more lances made of Essence at her flying form.

She spun and dodged around them neatly before retaliating with her own lances of darkness. The pair traded blows for a bit, with Wasp trying to puzzle out how she would beat Markoth without killing him, even though he was very intent on killing her.

Then she noticed that unlike his Dream Warrior form, Markoth actually stayed quite firmly on the ground. If he was incapable of flight or just chose not to, she wasn’t sure, but she was going to use it to her advantage.

Having discovered that memes and references could be used to power magic, Wasp had begun replicating quite a few different techniques she’d seen anime characters use. Unfortunately, Wasp wasn’t a huge fan of television back when she’d been human, so her knowledge of most animes was fairly limited, with one glaring exception: Naruto.

She’d watched every episode of Naruto, and she remembered quite a few of the more memorable techniques, and had figured out how to reverse-engineer some of them. Not all of them, certainly not, but she had a small repertoire of Jutsus at her disposal, and she’d combined two similar Jutsus into one for maximum effect. 

Her naming conventions for her Jutsus were a little odd, a mix of Japanese and English, because she remembered what the different Japanese names of the elements were, but not the rest of the attack names, and she liked adding ‘no Jutsu’ to the end of the attacks. It helped her picture the attack’s effect more clearly. 

She felt zero shame in shouting out the name of her attack before or as she performed it, because it's not like anyone in Hallownest but her understood or could even pronounce English. Bug mouths were weird and could only make certain sounds, and human vowels and consonants were a little bit beyond most bugs’ capabilities.

She shouted out the name of her Jutsu just before activating it, greatly confusing Markoth.

_ Hehe! I have the power of God, shitty 90’s movies, AND anime on my side! Get ready to get wrecked, moth boy! _

“Doton: Graboid no Jutsu!”

She shut her vents and dove full-speed at the floor and vanished into it with the barely audible sound of shifting sand.

Now, being underground and seeing the world as a set of vibrations and electromagnetic waves was hella weird, but Wasp had practiced with this spell a bit before, so the suddenly-new sensory input was manageable. She also cheated a bit with her Mage Sight, which wasn’t obscured by things like walls or floors.

Markoth glowed a nimbus of different pastel colors above her, with Wasp able to see small particles of Dream Essence coming off of his form. She shifted her tentacles out, having gained a bit more control of them, and swam near-effortlessly through the solid rock to position herself directly under him.

He seemed very confused and wary about where she was, but as she was underground, his magical senses must have been confused. He seemed to be able to sense concentrations of Void, but when she wasn’t actively blasting spells full of Void at him, he seemed to have a bit of trouble pinpointing her location. 

She quickly executed the second half of her attack by reaching up through the earth with her tentacles and grabbing his undefended legs before dragging him bodily into the earth.

During development, she’d had to add a secondary part to the spell once she remembered that bugs breathed through their sides and not their mouths. It acted sorta like the Bubblehead Charm from Harry Potter in that it provided a bubble of breathable air around a bug’s vents so they didn’t suffocate.

‘Graboid no Jutsu’ was one of her few non-lethal techniques. A few others included: ‘Don’t Tase Me, Bro!’ and ‘Vulcan Neck Pinch’.

Unfortunately, both of the other techniques required the caster to be very close to the target, and Markoth was a mid-to-long-range fighter and had been doing a fantastic job of keeping Wasp from getting all up in his biz.

Not anymore though. Markoth was wedged into the earth quite firmly, with only his head sticking out. Wasp resurfaced and shook herself off to try and remove some of the dirt from her form. The attempt mostly failed, but she could always go take a quick dip in one of the nearby acid pools to literally disintegrate all the dirt off her.

Markoth was struggling and failing to free himself, swearing up a storm of completely new and foreign curses, and Wasp eagerly whipped out her journal and started taking notes. New material was so hard to find, and here Markoth was, being an absolute gem and giving her a goldmine of new Hallownest swears to practice using.

“...and shove it up your--! Wait, what are you doing?” Markoth cut himself off and was now staring puzzled at Wasp’s frantic note-taking.

“No no, please continue! This stuff is gold! I’ve been starved for new swearing material for so long, you have no idea! The one about cursing me and all my ancestors to suffer in eternal darkness for all time was particularly inspired, but I am literally made of darkness and crawled my way outta the Abyss, so overall it’s less effective, but points for creativity!” Wasp said eagerly, motioning for Markoth to continue his angry tirade. 

“...What? ...Aren’t you going to kill me now? You have bested me handily in single combat, aren’t you going to finish the job? I don’t know why or how I still draw breath, seeing as I should be suffocating at the moment, but I figured you would want to have the satisfaction of dispatching me yourself…” Markoth said, very confused indeed.

“What? No! You need to live! I never wanted to kill you in the first place, I just needed to get the stupid Godtuner to Attune to you by kicking your ass sufficiently, and then I would have been on my merry way! You’re like the only other living moth I know of, and the Seer is so sad and lonely, I figured she’d be happy to see another one of her people again,” Wasp said.

“The Seer? She still lives?” Markoth asked, sounding oddly hopeful.

“Uh, yeah? She’s totally fine as far as I know, and I visited her a couple of days ago. She’s been hiding out on Crystal Peak for whatever reason. I don’t know why, that place is so dreary and windy. Do you know her?” Wasp asked, curious. She’d heard that one fan theory that Markoth might have been Seer’s son or something, but nothing in the game really supported the theory, but now she was re-evaluating that.

“She’s my mother! I thought her dead, taken by the Old Light’s wrath! You’re telling me she’s been hiding out in our ancestral village this whole time?!” Markoth said, shocked.

_ Fuckin’ called it! _

“Yeah! She seemed nice. We had a long conversation about the whole current situation of the fluffy lamp bitch giving everyone dream AIDS because she couldn’t handle being called a boomer and being left behind when a better, less dictator-y god came along,” Wasp said dismissively, totally missing the look on Markoth’s face at her strange way of referring to things.

“...I see,” Markoth said. 

“Well, seeing as how neither of us is fighting the other anymore, if I free you, will you promise not to attack me? I’ve got places to be, and it sounds like you do too.”

“Very well. Free me from this strange imprisonment and I give you my word that I will not attack you unless I am threatened.”

“Sweetness,” Wasp stomped her leg once on the ground and cancelled the technique. Markoth was summarily ejected from his earthy prison. He flopped over onto the ground with an ‘oof’ before he managed to right himself, where he also tried and failed to remove all the dirt from his form.

“Oh, hey, before you go, do you need anything like a map or supplies or rope or anything like that? I need to fight my way through the Colosseum of Fools to fight a couple of specific dudes, and it costs money to enter the Trials for the first time, and I don’t have any Geo. I mean, I could always just bust the gate down or burrow under it, but I’d rather not cause any more of a scene than I already will,” Wasp said.

Markoth just blinked at her before opening his mouth, “Actually, a map and some fresh water would not go amiss. Supplies are somewhat hard to come by this far out. I have a modest supply of Geo to trade.”

“Awesome! I have a map and a bunch of water canteens. I’ve got regular ones, and a couple I enchanted to pull moisture outta the air, so as long as you don’t go someplace that’s hella dry, you’d always have some supply of water!” Wasp said, doing her best to pitch her goods. She pulled the aforementioned goods out of her hammerspace, much to Markoth’s shock.

“Where did those come from? That canteen is as big as your head!”

“Oh, I’ve got access to hammerspace, I’ve got loads of shit stored up in there! It's like an endless, weightless bag that's bigger on the inside! Like I said, you need supplies, I’ve got loads, and it's not like I need them. I brought them in case they might be useful to someone else. I’ve got non-perishable foodstuffs too, in case you wanna buy some of that.”

Markoth looked intrigued, but began examining the two different canteens.

“You said you enchanted one to collect water from the air? If that is true, then you are clearly a bug of many talents. From what I know, enchanting is a difficult art to master.”

“Pfft, no, everyone else just thinks it is and thinks in, like, the tiniest boxes ever. There ain’t no box that can contain me! I laugh in the face of impossibilities and spit on the laws of the universe! When life gives you lemons, only chumps make lemonade! Legends will figure out a way to make those lemons combustible and then burn life’s house down! With the lemons!” Wasp said passionately. Cave Johnson was a legend and gift to the world, and Wasp adored the crazy bastard.

Markoth gave her some side eye, clearly thinking she was a bit off her rocker, so Wasp let the effectiveness of her inventions speak for themselves.

“Here look, I’ll show you how it works so you know I’m not just making shit up,” Wasp said before grabbing the full regular canteen. It was made of metal, so Wasp undid the cap and used a couple of minor spells to heat up the metal of the canteen between her hands to rapidly boil the water inside.

The water vapor floated up before the runes on the other canteen lit up faintly and began drawing the vapor into a small port on the side of the canteen. Markoth looked inside the cap and saw the water levels rise minutely.

“How fascinating! I’ve never seen such a thing before, but clearly it works. How much for the enchanted canteen and the map?”

“Oh, uh, I think it costs something like a hundred Geo to enter the first Trial, and if you win you get lots of prize money, so I’d have plenty to enter the other two Trials after that. So, I guess a hundred-fifty Geo for both? I’m not quite sure how much a Geo is worth anyway, I dropped outta school before we got to that lesson, but I don’t think that’s too much, right?” Wasp said, now feeling a bit uncertain. 

She had a very fair sense of business, and she didn’t want to accidentally rip Markoth off. She wasn’t that kind of person, and he seemed like a pretty cool dude, once he wasn’t trying to kill her.

“A hundred-fifty?! That’s basically a stagway robbery on my part! No, the canteen alone is worth at least three-hundred by itself! I won’t pay less than four hundred for the lot!” Markoth exclaimed.

“But I made that canteen as a brain exercise! It took me, like, ten Hallownest minutes to make! Two hundred is plenty! I don’t really need Geo for anything else, and it's not like I need the supplies either!” Wasp argued.

“Nonsense! This is worth much more than that! Three hundred!” Markoth haggled.

“Two-fifty, take it or leave it! I won’t accept any more than that! You should use that money on something else more important! Like buying your mom a present or something!” Wasp haggled right back.

“Oh, very well! Two-fifty it is, then!” Markoth said. He retrieved a small money pouch and counted out the right denominations of Geo pieces. Wasp had no idea which pieces represented what amount, aside from the ones that looked like a bunch of circles stuck together being worth the least. There were a lot of the fatter spherical Geo though, and she hoped Markoth wasn’t trying to be a sneaky bastard and give her more money than her minimal efforts were worth.

Wasp retrieved a skein of thick silk and quickly wove together a small money pouch while sitting on the ground while Markoth was busy counting out Geo. While she was no weaver, she had figured out how to sort of crochet using her fingers and hooked claws. 

She completely missed Markoth’s impressed look at her deft fingers and quick weaving.

The bag was done in a flash and she shoved the silk roll back into her hammerspace. Markoth held out the money and dropped it into the open silk pouch. Wasp eagerly forked over the map, she’d already made copies a long time ago, as well as the enchanted canteen full of clean water.

* * *

They both exited the cave and walked together for a short while making small talk. His tiny companion was chattering on about all her inventions and all her new ideas for things, and Markoth was trying to grasp that this strange, tiny, grub-looking bug was some sort of mad genius when it came to magic.

Her ramblings made next to no sense, especially her explanation of how she cast her magic, but after feeling for himself how the tiny bug’s Soul shape twisted in on itself into a spell matrix the likes of which he’d never seen or sensed before, he believed damn-near every word out of her non-existent mouth.

Normally, a bug had to draw out their Soul before forming  _ that _ into a spell, which usually came with some sort of wind-up time, but the tiny bug, Wasp, he learned her name was, just folded her entire being into a spell itself! She could repeatedly fire off the same spell in very rapid succession with zero charge up time necessary!

She called such a tactic ‘spamming’ and considered it to be ‘cheesy, but fun,’ whatever ‘cheese’ was.

He hadn’t noticed it during his fight with her because she was so lightning fast with it, and one generally didn’t stop to sense their opponent in such a way in the middle of a fight. Such a thing took a little concentration for most bugs, Markoth included.

He nearly had a heart attack when she joyfully exclaimed about finding an acid pit, right before she dove in head first! Markoth lunged for the suicidal grub but was too late to catch her.

She was completely fine.

She just started rolling around in the deadly acid and cleaning the dirt off of herself like she was bathing in a shallow hot spring and not a very deep pool of deadly acid!

When Markoth finally got his panicked breathing under control, she finally seemed to notice his distress and became concerned.  _ Concerned! _ For  _ him! _ She was the one having a lovely time somehow not dying horrifically in a pit of acid, or drowning for that matter!

Turns out she didn’t need to breathe, or eat, or rest. Once she was clean she shared some of her tragic history, and if Markoth had been a follower of the Pale King, that singular conversation would have fixed that quite quickly.

To think that he had been beaten by a grub barely over a year old! Markoth would have felt humiliated if not for the fact that she was clearly god-spawn and had an insane body to match her insane mind. She’d apparently outwitted the King himself just a few weeks after her hatching!

The more Markoth listened, the more incredulous he became. Wasp wielded the Dreamnail, and had stolen it from right in front of the Old Light, after having given birth to another god all on her own, using nothing but her intellect! After he visited his mother, he’d try to convince her to move to Deepnest with him.

Wasp had already invited them both and it was currently the only place in the entire kingdom totally free from the Old Light’s influence. He and his mother would be safe from her wrath there.

Markoth also desperately wanted to meet this ‘Tantabus’ character. For a race of beings so intertwined with Dreams, hearing that there was now a god of Dreamless Sleep was fascinating.

* * *

After having a lovely, albeit long, conversation with Markoth, Wasp said her goodbyes and spread her wings and began flying straight up the cliffs to the Colosseum, dodging the falling bodies of unlucky fools and Primal Aspids alike. 

She made her way into the Colosseum relatively quickly. Little Fool was hanging up in his customary spot and he welcomed her in.

“Aha! Another warrior finds their way to our fair Colosseum. Ours is the final destination for all seeking trials of intense and deadly combat. All one has to do is place their mark upon their Trial Board of choice and lo! The arena's gate will open.

There's a small fee attached to each trial, but I'm sure as skilled a combatant as yourself will have accrued a wealth of Geo. Being a fugitive from the Pale King himself and surviving this long is no mean feat!

Now, before you draw your nail and rush eagerly to battle, I'll offer one quick word of advice. There's a warriors' pit just below here, where others like yourself await their own trials. I'd strongly advise using it to rest up before placing your mark.

Don’t worry about any of the warriors in the pit attacking you, there’s a strict policy of peace in the resting areas. All disagreements are to be settled either in the arena, or far outside of the Colosseum. The only conflict we seek here is in the ring.

Oh and have no doubt, I'm a fearsome warrior myself. Don't go judging me by my size, or my current... errr... constraint. The Colosseum beckons us both! I'll be back in battle soon!” He explained long-windedly.

“Okay, sweet. How much to unlock the first Trial?” Wasp asked.

“Only a hundred Geo for the first Trial!” Little Fool chirped.

Wasp poured out a few golden Geo pieces into her hand, “Cool, how much is this? I’m kinda unfamiliar with Geo. I’m used to a different currency, and I’ve been too busy running around being a badass and avoiding the law to learn.”

Little fool seemed a little shocked, “Well, the golden Geo pieces are worth twenty-five Geo each, the silver tablet-shaped ones are worth five, and the round iron ones are only worth one.”

Wasp quickly peered into the bag and did a quick count. “Oh, that sneaky motherfucker! Only two-fifty my adorable ass!” Wasp said with exasperated fondness.

“Were you cheated out of payment?” Little Fool asked.

“No! That sly bastard gave me extra when I told him two-fifty was plenty! This is way more than my shit was worth! I’ll have to track him down and beat his ass again to get him to take his money back!” Wasp griped.

* * *

Little Fool was greatly confused. He’d never heard someone get so upset over being given _ extra _ Geo. 

“Isn’t that part of why you’re here though? Bugs only come to the Colosseum for two reasons: Fame and Fortune. Are you one of the rare few that seeks only the glory of battle itself?” Little Fool asked.

“Well, that’s one way to put it. I need to kick the asses of some very specific foes, and two of them are in this Colosseum, and one of them happens to be the current Champion. The money’s a nice bonus, as is the Pale Ore and Charm Notch, but they’re not why I’m here. I’m here to kick ass, take names, and chew bubblegum, and I don’t have a fucking mouth, so kicking ass and taking names is one of the only joys I get out of life right now.”

Little Fool didn’t know how to respond to that, so he merely said, “Well, if you wish to participate in the Trial of the Warrior, deposit one hundred Geo exactly into that collection box over there, and I’ll open the gate for you. You can rest up in the warrior’s pit and when you’re ready, you can place your mark on the Trial Board and enter the arena. If you win, you can craft a personalized marker to hang on the Board if you want.”

“I’ll skip the resting pit for now, I’m sorta itching for a fight now,” The strange small bug said while she walked over and dropped four golden Geo into the box. Little Fool flexed his Soul a bit and matched the little bug’s signature to the massive system of wards over the Colosseum to authorize her for the first Trial.

“So how do I put a mark on this thing? Do I just scratch a line on it or something?”

“No, you simply place your hand on it and the magic does the rest.”

The small bug did so and the wards reacted and let the audience know a challenger was about to undertake the Trial of the Warrior.

“Cool, I’ll see you on the other side, then!”

“Good luck, small warrior!” Little Fool called out as the strange bug charged through the open arena doors with the strangest battle cry he’d ever heard. He didn’t even know it was possible for a bug to make such sounds!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lol markoth doesnt quite know what to make of wasp, but he can recognize a godling once a few signs are made apparent. also wasp can now sorta replicate certain anime attacks! thats gonna be fun :) 
> 
> also a tremors reference b/c i hate cheesy B-list movies with one giant exception, and that exception is all the tremors movies lol. bert is a fucking legend. he reminds me of my dad, sorta, in that 'crazy ex-military man with too many guns and an unhealthy love of explosives' kinda way.
> 
> markoth is a noble warrior, but when the unexpected happens, he tends to have a bit of a potty-mouth. wasp approves and is eagerly taking notes. lol one of the greatest insults in moth culture is wishing eternal darkness upon your enemies because LÄMP
> 
> also i totally headcanon that markoth is seer's son :) they also moving to Deepnest, and we gonna get more herrah POV soon


	18. ROB, If This Is Your Attempt At A Bribe, Then Damn You, Because It's Working!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the delay, i was working on my other stories. the black spirit is kicking my ass right now, my muse just doesnt wanna touch it right now :( its frustrating because i wanna write for it more but i just cant rn. 
> 
> i started yet another story, but this one has nothing to do with hollow knight. instead it's a pokemon themed isekai with a devious MC who hates how bad all the villains suck, so they decide to be the one competent villain, while also being the protagonist, b/c ash's dumbassery also pisses her off. its called 'The Greatest Trick' :) in that one i indulge my inner slytherin instead of my inner crazy ass meme queen
> 
> now that i have three stories to bounce between, hopefully my muse is satisfied and can always find something to work on. so while this story has my focus right now, the others might get updated on days this one isn't so. also expect updates like every-other day, or maybe every three days. RL shit is happening, and imma start working full-time in a physically demanding job so idk how much energy i'll have left to write everyday, but we'll see

Wasp remembered the Colosseum Trials to be quite long and arduous affairs. She’d never really cared for them in-game, but this was different. 

For one, Lord Fool was apparently alive or something, because the throne overlooking the pit was in excellent condition and currently empty.

Also, the waves of enemies came from many smaller entrances and exits in the Colosseum’s walls instead of strange metal boxes that appeared out of nowhere, which made sense.

What didn’t make sense was how much fun she was having. She’d been doing the Trial for some time, laughing with excitement as she crushed foe after foe beneath her club. Hemolymph was everywhere, and only some of her opponents appeared to be infected, making a macabre tableau of yellowish-green and lurid orange all over the Colosseum’s sandy floor.

It hit her like a ton of bricks then. She was enjoying the fight. Not necessarily the death or carnage, but the exhilaration of fighting. She’d felt it before to a lesser degree when she’d fought The Hunter and Markoth, but not to this degree.

She was an anxiety-ridden, semi-depressed mess as a human, but after she’d gotten Shanghai’d outta the afterlife, she’d only had, like, two freakouts! Part of her was freaking out now upon realizing how radically her personality seemed to have shifted, and she began to question her own sense of self.

But she was also in the middle of a deathmatch, so she shoved all those existential crises into a box and compartmentalized like a motherfucker. She could unpack all of her mental bullshit _after_ she kicked all the ass.

She lost herself to the rhythm of the fight, so much so that she failed to notice when she began shooting off Void lightning without using her club to charge up first. Soul was so plentiful in this death-pit that she was firing off spells like it was going outta style.

The audience was losing their shit at the spectacular show she was putting on, flitting from one end of the area to the other, smashing, slicing, and spelling her opponents into oblivion.

The Trial soon ended, and the audience showered her with Geo, but it all seemed to hit some sort of invisible net in the air and vanished.

_If I don’t get my prize money when I leave the fighting ring, imma lose my shit, and heads are gonna roll._

She shook excess gore off of Raid and angrily stomped her way out of the arena. She came here to kick ass, not have a mental breakdown, and she wasn’t happy about the situation.

“Wow! Not that I was doubting you, but you sure blew all my expectations away! That was one of the best bouts I’ve seen in a while! Such power! Such savagery! I hope you will continue to climb your way to glory! I’m sure you’ll be a spectacle for the ages!” Little Fool gushed. Wasp grimaced internally at the praise. Being praised for her ‘savagery’ wasn’t helping her current mental situation.

“Yeah, I’m a badass, I know, but what happened to all the money the audience was throwing at me? I thought there were prizes for winning?” Wasp said waspishly. She was cranky and needed to go find a place to sort out her thoughts before she exploded or had a breakdown somewhere inopportune.

“Oh, not to worry! The wards catch any money or other prizes you win and deposit it into a personalized box, it’s the one with your mask on it. That way contestants don’t have to spend time picking up Geo off the floor like a beggar. Only you can open your box, so make sure to collect any winnings before you leave!” Little Fool chirped, totally unfazed by her angry tone. He probably got that reaction a lot from first-timers.

“If I leave to go take care of some personal business, will my winnings still be in the box when I get back?” 

“Of course! As long as you collect your earnings within a year and a day, everything will be just as you left it! After that, any uncollected winnings will go back into the Colosseum, so don’t wait too long!” Little Fool said.

“Fuckin’ A. You said there’s a warrior’s pit to rest in, but is there anywhere a little more...private nearby? I’ve got to sort through my thoughts, and I don’t want to have a bunch of random assholes staring at me the whole time,” Wasp explained.

“Oh! Um, yes actually, but only for those who win the Trial of the Conqueror or above. There’s an extra luxurious victor’s bath that has small private suites and places to sleep for those who seek to stay at the Colosseum more long-term, or if they just want a little pampering or need a bit more intensive healing. The Colosseum takes good care of those who are able to persevere and win,” Little Fool explained.

“So, I’ve gotta beat the next Trial to access that?” Wasp asked irritably. Little Fool nodded. “Fucking fine. Whatever, now I’m pissed and there’s a convenient pile of stress relief idiots on the other side of that door. How much to unlock the next Trial?” Wasp demanded as she opened the chest labelled with her face and dug through the pile of money to find the Charm Notch. 

Her Mage Sight made that task trivial and she shoved it into her hammerspace without a second thought. She’d have time to pick it apart later.

“Four-hundred-fifty Geo to access the Trial of the Conqueror! But are you sure you don’t want to rest first? Bugs almost never attempt two Trials in a row, and those that do don’t tend to win…” Little Fool warned.

“I’m a fucking freak of nature. Here’s the entrance fee. Let me in before I lose my shit,” Wasp said tightly. She needed an immediate goal, like smashing an enemy into bug-paste, before she fell apart out in public.

“A-ah, there you go! Good luck!” Little Fool stammered, clearly nervous.

Wasp turned around and stomped back into the arena. The first enemy was a Heavy Fool. Wasp screamed in rage and smashed his face in with Raid. His exoskeleton caved in like a watermelon and he fell over and didn’t get back up.

More fools arrived to test her, and Wasp threw herself into the fray, bellowing fire and fury. The Void in her guts thrashed and churned with her emotions. The nearby shadows grew darker and some even appeared to grow tendrils that thrashed or teeth that gnashed.

Wasp didn’t notice. She was too busy being pissed off and raging against the sheer _bullshit_ that was her life right now.

_I never asked for this!_

She launched Void lightning right from her clawtips, Emperor-Palpatine-style. 

_Heh, I guess I am kinda giving myself over to the Dark Side right now, but considering it’s the Light Side that’s actually evil in this situation, I guess it’s fine._

She smashed more Armored Squits and the dreaded Primal Aspids and let the world hear her rage. 

_I didn’t want this, and I’ll make sure that ROB bastard who’s responsible knows what a fatal error kidnapping my soul was!_

Lost in her tumultuous emotions, she didn’t notice when her Void tendrils came out to play, or that she now possessed much greater control over them than ever before. The tentacles grew razor-edged barbs along their length, and their wild thrashing and unnatural strength shredded any enemies that approached her from behind.

Her head rang with her screams of rage, neatly disguising the building pressure in her skull. 

When she finally got to the Oblobbles, she didn’t even think about what she did next. It felt instinctual. Despite the Colosseum of Fools being underground, dark clouds began to gather near the ceiling of the enormous cavern.

Thunder sounded, confusing many of the audience members who’d never heard thunder before and only seen rain in the City of Tears.

The Oblobbles circled her, shooting globs of acid at her that did absolutely nothing. The Oblobbles were not infected, and thus Isma’s Tear was coming in handy yet again and basically no-selling the giant flying acid-bags.

Wasp focused on the gathering Void in the air above her. She rubbed the Void against itself, somehow generating a static charge. Positive and negative ions charged the air and many bugs felt their antennae stand on end.

Wasp rubbed the Void inside her own body against itself, but in the opposite direction from what was happening in the clouds far overhead.

A negative charge in the clouds and a positive one in her body. Void called to Void, and when Wasp dropped her club to hang from its ribbon from her wrist and raised her arms into the air, the lighting heeded her call.

“RAIKIRI!”

What happened in Godhome looked like getting shocked by a metal door handle in comparison.

The bolts of Void lightning struck her form before arcing and lancing off of it, striking the Oblobbles and flash-frying their insides with the heat of a star. The things exploded in a shower of gore that was instantly vaporized by more lightning.

Wasp herself was channeling the wrath of a storm through her tiny, grub-like body, and it nearly couldn’t handle the strain.

Raw unadulterated power surged through her soft Void-flesh, through her hooves and clawtips, through her very bones. Lightning danced through her horns, sparks dripped from her eye sockets like tears, and when she tilted her head back to scream, it was the sound of ten thousand agonized, angry souls trapped in the Abyss crying out.

Wasp howled, and the Abyss howled with her.

An electrical storm the likes of which the world hadn’t seen in an age started up inside the Colosseum of Fools. Diluted Void rained from the black clouds as they sparked with more lightning.

Bolt after bolt struck Wasp’s form as it stood in the center of the arena. Raid shuddered and sparked as Void-tainted electricity surged through it repeatedly. The red ribbon turned black.

When the electrical storm finally ended, Wasp remained conscious just long enough to remark, “I don’ feel too goo’...” before she passed out on the hemolymph-soaked sands of the arena floor.

* * *

Deep in the Royal Waterways, an ancient bug shuddered as she felt a dusty old mantle crackle and shake. It wasn’t quite time, but it was so, so close.

_O God of Rain, o God of Thunder, thy successor has been chosen. Though thy mantle slumbers yet, the time draws near, indeed. We See now. She who commands the skies, even barred from them by stone and earth is a worthy successor indeed._

_She is no crawler, no cringer. Only a god could hope to steal from another god. We See now. She seeks to Attune herself through Us. We are happy to be of service._

* * *

Deep in the White Palace, the Pure Vessel stood alone in the darkness of its holding room. No one was around to witness it begin to shake, Void tears dripping from its eye sockets as it screamed with its siblings.

The Pure Vessel didn’t understand what was happening, only that it had to scream. It had no mouth or voice to cry out suffering and yet it did anyway. It felt a foreign thing pass through it.

It Ignored the way it knew this to be Anger. The Pure Vessel was Pure, despite the Void staining its mask telling a different story. 

A strange Thought came to mind. It was a name. A name of a place. The Colosseum of Fools. It didn’t know what that meant, only that the Important Thing was happening there.

The strange episode soon passed and the Pure Vessel returned to being Emotionless, Thoughtless, and Pure.

_Do Not Think...Do Not Hope...Do Not…_

By the time someone came to fetch it for its next training session, the Void stains had vanished.

* * *

Deep in the Hidden Village, the Tantabus’s non-existent breath hitched. The Abyss was angry, he could feel it in the small bits of Void he carried within himself. He knew exactly where Mother was. She was in the Colosseum of Fools. How he knew this, he didn’t know, but it was useful information.

There must be some sort of connection between them if he knew where she was with no way of knowing that logically.

Perhaps he could use such a connection to his advantage? 

Regardless, he had a message to impart to a very special bug. Hornet was missing her sister, and he thought it was about time for a family reunion.

* * *

Hornet sat bolt-upright in bed the next morning. The Colosseum of Fools. Tantabus had spoken to her while she had slept that night. Somehow, he knew where Wasp was and had managed to get a message to her. The Tantabus’s methods of communication were often vague or unspecific, but that message was crystal clear.

Hornet launched herself out of bed and began packing everything she’d need for her journey. She had to leave as soon as possible, because Wasp was the fastest bug Hornet had ever met, and there was no telling how long or how short her stay at the Colosseum would be.

Why she was even there, Hornet didn’t particularly care. She finished packing in record time and rushed off to go tell her mother that she was leaving on her journey right now. 

The Colosseum wasn’t too terribly far, she could use the Tramway to get to Kingdom’s edge, and her new Needle-throwing and reeling technique would allow her to traverse the vertical distances with ease.

“Mother! Mother, I’m leaving for Kingdom’s Edge! Wasp is in the Colosseum of Fools, and I need to get there before she leaves!” Hornet called out as she burst into her mother’s room.

Thankfully, she was already awake, and was startled by Hornet’s seemingly random declaration.

“Hornet? What do you mean? How do you know that?” Mother asked.

“Tantabus told me! _Something_ happened and Wasp is in the Colosseum of Fools, and I have to get there before she leaves! What if she needs help?!” Hornet said quickly.

“Ah, well then, in that case...I suppose I have no choice but to let you go. You’ve been preparing for months, and I’ve seen how capable you are, sweetling. Go then, and find your sister. She’ll be thrilled to see you, I’m sure. I can count on you both to watch each other’s backs,” Mother said, before she leaned down to nuzzle her. “I assume you’re already packed and ready to go?”

Hornet nodded quickly.

“Then go, be swift and silent, a shadow in the dark. I will count the days until your safe return. Deepnest will miss its Princess Protector in the meantime,” Mother said with a smile.

Hornet nodded and turned to rush out the door but one last remark from her mother made her pause.

“I love you, Hornet. Come back to me safe and sound alright?” Mother said softly. Hornet turned around and gave her mother one last hug.

“Of course mother. I love you too. I’ll come back safe and sound, with Wasp too, once we save everyone.”

Hornet turned again and strode out the door without looking back.

* * *

Herrah watched her fierce, strong daughter leave the nest.

“That’s my girl.”

* * *

Wasp floated in darkness. It was warm, and there was no pain or discomfort.

_~Deja vu, I’ve just been in this place before, higher on the street, and I know it’s my time to go~_

_No but seriously, this bullshit again? I swear to fuck, if that Raikiri killed me and that goddamn ROB sonuvabitch punted my soul somewhere else AGAIN, my rage will make the heat of a thousand stars look like a candle on a fat kid’s birthday cake._

She had no body in this strange place, and she couldn’t feel her limbs. She was just a floating ball of consciousness, and she was already sick of it.

_Fuck this, imma take a nap. Maybe things will work out and I’ll wake up and have a body again like I did last time, but I suppose maybe now would be a good time to sort through my existential bullshit..._

_So, with that in mind...what the fuck, me? Like, seriously. I am supposed to be a big fucking weak-ass weenie who hates sweat and conflict, not some amazing badass with a body like muscular baby Jesus and kickass magic powers!_

_That’s what I wish I was like! Well, minus the creepy muscular baby-body. I could do without that._

_So, is this a biology vs psychology type deal, like, I have a different brain now with different brain chemistry, and so my personality is different? Maybe…_

_Bugs are a lot different than mammals after all, and I know jack-shit about what the biology of Hallownest bugs is like, much less how my weird Void freakazoid body works!_

_Hell, I don’t even know if they have internal bones! I know I have bones, but I don’t know what they’re even made of!_

_Fuck, I’m not getting anywhere with this! Arg, fuck it! My personality is now ‘badass warrior-inventor-mage’ and my anxiety is gone and so’s my depression, why am I so angsty about this?! I’d much rather be a badass than a depressed, anxious weenie!_

Just as she resolved her inner conflict, a kazoo noise played along with confetti that came out of fucking nowhere, and that one stock sound of a bunch of kids going ‘Yay!’.

“What the fuck?! Who’s out there?! Fucking show yourself you fucking ROB bastard! I’ll chew your legs off! Don’t test me you twat-waffle!” She shouted out into the darkness. The confetti faded away into nothingness, and like something out of ‘The Gamer’, a holographic screen appeared in front of her.

“Oh, HELL no! I better not have died! This better not be some ‘game over’ bullshit or I _swear to fuck_ I’ll figure out a way to find you and _force-feed you your own goddamn intestines,_ or the closest equivalent you have!”

The screen merely moved closer and Wasp could finally make out the words displayed on it.

‘Congratulations! You’ve done the impossible yet-again and graduated from baby-Vessel to adolescent-Vessel without performing a horribly-painful and unethical ritual!’

“Wait, you mean…!” 

The words on the screen changed between one instant and the next.

‘Yes! You will no longer be a freakishly muscular baby bug! Instead, you will be a freakishly muscular teenage bug! Progress!’

“Oh ha- _fucking_ -ha! Very funny! Is that all? I’d have figured that out on my own when I woke up and got outta here, so why the showmanship ROB?”

‘You’ve impressed me, and as a reward, I’m letting you pick what your adult form will look like! You can design your future body here, and your form will begin to grow to match! Bugs don’t grow like people do, so instead of puberty, they undergo an adolescent molt! 

Depending on the species, it can either be a minor or dramatic shift in appearance! Some species even undergo metamorphosis! Your current body is the result of a Wyrm and a sentient tree-goddess getting freaky, so you’re extra special! 

Normally, a Vessel would grow extremely slowly over time, like a tree, but you went and supercharged yourself using the power of pure Void, so you get to skip the wait and go straight to teenagehood, and all that it entails! Congratulations, take as much time as you need, and good luck!’

The screen suddenly vanished as soon as she was done reading, and she was instead presented with a screen and interface she was very familiar with.

It looked like a Hollow Knight-themed version of the ‘Spore Creature Creator’ interface, with her current freakishly muscular baby-Vessel form displayed on one side, with a variety of different body part options on the other.

“If this is your attempt to bribe me into not hating you, _goddammit,_ it’s working. Kinda. I still hate you but now I will merely kick you in the balls, or the closest equivalent, before being on my merry way instead of killing you brutally.”

The interface seemed to be sort of controlled by her mind, but there was still a cursor and it was like using a computer, sort of. She saw an option to sort of save a snapshot of what she was currently looking at and she did that right away. 

She wanted to be able to revert to her base form if she managed to royally fuck something up. She’d rather be a muscular Void baby forever than some lopsided monstrosity, so.

She also saw an option for the Hollow Knight’s adult Pure Vessel form, and she clicked on that, figuring it was a good base to start off of. Instead of looking like they had in the game, it was a much more realistic version of them, with Void chitin plates and digitigrade legs with the same hoof-claws most humanoid bugs seemed to have.

Those hands would have to go though. They looked way too human and it was wigging her out, uncanny-valley style.

Wasp liked her claws, and she’d gotten used to having only three fingers and a thumb, so she clicked around and started editing things. The whole system seemed sort of like animation software, with a 3D model and different ways to manipulate it.

She hoped time was frozen or something, because she was spending what was probably hours tweaking things to her liking. This was going to be her adult body after all, and she wanted to be happy with it.

Now that she had accepted her new role and personality, she decided to really lean into it. Badass-warrior-inventor-mage, all the way.

Four arms, because _hello,_ more combat potential! Bigger claws for Massive Damage, but retractable with needle-sharp tips, so they wouldn’t get in the way when she had to do detail work or futz with really tiny things. 

She added yet another set of smaller, scythe-like proto-arms on her waist, just above her hips when she found the option in the ‘arms’ section. They looked sharp and like they could be used in CQC if some fuckwit dared to try and get close. 

She designed them to fold tightly against her body, near the grooves of her hips and groin area, and when they were folded away like that, they were basically invisible! Just wait for some idiot to try something, and then _surprise motherfucker!_ Extra stabby knife arms to their gut!

She decided to leave her palms and the undersides of her fingers unplated, because she liked feeling things like fine textures and it was also just what she was used to. Her knuckles would be reinforced though, because she liked the smashy-smashy.

She’d also bulked up the torso and limbs of the base Hollow Knight model she’d started with, because despite muscles looking super freaky on her current fleshy baby body, they’d all be hidden behind armored plates.

The plates themselves were already arranged in a functional and aesthetically-pleasing manner, so she just bumped up their thickness a little to provide better protection. Although she was wickedly fast, she wanted to be able to tank hits way better, so more armor was necessary.

No more vulnerable fleshy bits! She gave the model a bit more of a feminine human figure, but not so much that it looked too weird compared to how most bugs’ bodies were structured.

A thinner waist and slightly wider hips, with a subtle uniform swell near the chest, like those female cuirasses she’d seen in museums. Not the boob-plate ones, but the ones that just raised where the little deflection peak was to better imitate a feminine figure. The more historically-accurate ones looked like that.

Most bugs were either very thin or very round and thick, with only a few exceptions. The current profile of the model was a little outside the norm, but not massively so.

She kept the head mostly the same, except she added a trio of small horns on the forehead that looked like a crown, just to spite the Pale Douchecanoe. She was the offspring of the King and Queen of Hallownest, and that made her a motherfucking Princess, same as Hornet, and if the Pale Asshat got to have crown-horns, then she got to have crown-horns. 

She also made super-extra sure to add a fucking mouth, and filled it with the scariest-looking fangs she could, along with a pair of chelicerae on the sides, so that she’d match with Hornet and all the spiders in Deepnest.

She added an extra set of eyes for that reason too, plus she was curious if it would add to her depth perception or field of view. She styled them like Monomon’s so they almost looked like cute little eyebrows.

She was almost done, just a few more finishing touches left. She added spikes along the calves of the digitigrade legs just _For The Aesthetic_ , and then saw the little tab in the body-parts selection tab just labelled ‘Extras. For funsies :)’. 

She immediately clicked on it, and Wasp was blown away by the sheer amount of biological weaponry she could have sprouting from various different places on her body. Wings, tails, little abdomens with stingers, acid sprayers, and so much more.

She immediately added wings. Six of them, again to spite the Pale Fuckwit, and also because they looked super pretty. All white and silvery and shimmery. She added just a touch of iridescence for a lil’ razzle dazzle. 

She aslo made sure to make them the foldable kind and add elytra, because there were sure to be situations were wings would just be a big pain in the ass, so being able to tuck them away safe and sound would be dead-useful.

Now, onto butt add-ons. While the temptation to live up to her namesake was strong, she went with a tail as opposed to an abdomen for a few reasons. Tails were much more flexible, and she made sure to click the option to make it prehensile for added usefulness.

Then she added a bunch of plating and bumped up the thickness of the tail a bit before just fucking going ham with the spikes. Like the Deadly Nadder dragons from the ‘How to Train Your Dragon’ movies, she covered the tail with extendible spikes that could be whipped at enemies, along with a stinger that extended out of the end that was permanently attached.

Apparently eating Isma’s Tear had the added benefit of making her venomous as well, but she hadn’t known before because she didn’t have a stinger or a mouth.

All in all, her new body looked dangerous as all fuck, and also super extra. She didn’t care though. She thought it looked badass and powerful, while also being feminine, which was just what she wanted. Now, was there any way to actually make it female? 

Then, she saw little icons near the top with the symbols for gender on them, along with a couple she didn’t recognize, one of which was selected. She hovered the little cursor over the unfamiliar ones, hoping a little tag would appear and tell her what they meant.

Apparently the other two options were ‘sexless’ which was currently selected, and ‘intersex’. She quickly selected the regular ‘female’ option and left it at that. She didn’t know what bug genitals looked like, other than knowing that everything was internal. 

Though she had never wanted biological kids, she had enjoyed being female and having sex. She thankfully wasn’t one of those people with a crazy libido, but she’d enjoyed having a few hookups from time to time, but she’d never really bothered with relationships. 

She wanted to get her career sorted out first and be really mentally stable before thinking about romance, but alas, the stupid ROB had isekai’d her ass, and now she was in bug land in a child’s body that didn’t have a gender and didn’t feel those kinds of urges, thank god.

Wait...bug puberty...oh fuck, was her libido gonna come roaring back to life after this? It’d better not! She didn’t had time for that particular brand of bullshit right now, and she wasn’t even attracted to bugs!

But...maybe in the future, that would change? She was presumably stuck in Hallownest forever, so she’d at least like the option of being able to have sex, but how did bugs handle birth control? Was that even a thing? It was gonna fucking need to be a thing if she was EVER gonna have _‘le sexytimes’_ ever again.

Still, she’d like to leave herself the option, so she kept her selection as ‘female’ and moved on. Nothing visible about the model changed when she tried clicking on the other options out of curiosity, so she figured it was all just the plumbing that changed and nothing else.

She finished up tweaking the proportions of things and was ready to be done. When she hit the ‘finalize’ button though, another menu appeared that said ‘Take it for a test drive?’. 

_“Hell yes_ I wanna take it for a test drive!” She said excitedly.

She was suddenly transported to a small grassy clearing in her newly-designed adult body, and the change in perspectives was quite jarring. She was so tall now! _Yes!_ The four eyes and arms situation was interesting, but it didn’t take too long to adapt.

She practiced flexing everything and using her wings and tail. Firing off the tail-spikes was weird, but a quick burst of Soul and they grew back very quickly. Also her venom was acidic, which made sense, given that the venom was from Isma’s Tear.

Flying with actual wings was fascinating. The new muscles in her back sorta vibrated they moved so fast. Her voice sounded a bit different too, more husky and mature, but still retaining that ethereal sort of sing-song echo.

Her tongue was black and also hella long, and sorta functioned like a straw, which matched with what she’d seen from other bugs. Bugs didn’t really have lips like people did, so the biological solution was a proboscis that worked like a straw.

She could still make all the sounds she could before, but now it was like her speech-spell was just on all the time and just located in her throat instead of her whole body. She could even make sounds like police sirens or a super-realistic explosion noise! 

Honestly, it was more like she had a speaker lodged permanently in her throat than anything else. She just thought of what sound she wanted to make and her throat made it happen!

“Alright, I’m done!” She called out and immediately found herself bodiless and in front of a magic holographic computer screen once again. Again, the shift was jarring, and now the screen was different.

A menu had appeared that contained sliders and check-boxes for things like ‘Breathing is optional: Yes/No?’ and ‘Eating is optional: Yes/No?’ along with pictures of what her body would look like as it grew. She wouldn’t gain the scythe arms until right before her body was full-grown, which was a bit strange, but whatever.

Her tail and extra arms would grow in immediately though, along with the beginnings of a shell, but her tail was kinda stubby and sadly spineless until a couple more molts down the line.

She immediately selected the options that would allow her to continue to be an unstoppable machine not bothered by things like lack of air or food or such a plebian thing like sleep or rest. That was one thing she really, _really_ liked about her freaky Vessel body, but now she at least had the option of eating, even if it wouldn’t actually do anything for her besides being enjoyable.

She gave herself internal bones as well, to make her extra sturdy. Apparently only certain species of bug had an internal skeletal structure. Mostly the bigger, bulkier species, or the ones that got really tall or had long limbs, which made sense, kinda.

While bugs’ shells were made of chitin, it was naturally reinforced by the presence of Soul in the body, allowing the chitin to be unnaturally strong and support creatures of a much larger size, but only up to a point.

She finalized a couple more options before hitting the done button and confirming her choices. There was another stupid kazoo noise and confetti and rejoicing children, and Wasp’s world went black.

* * *

When she woke up again, she felt that she had limbs again, and felt a familiar confinement. She punched at the walls of her prison and tumbled out onto the cold, hard ground.

_Again, so much deja vu!_

“Wasp! You’re okay!” A familiar voice cried out.

Wasp coughed out a couple times to avoid breathing in mucus and felt someone pull her into an upright sitting position. Wasp’s four eyes cleared and she saw Hornet in front of her, but a more grown-up Hornet. 

She wasn’t quite at the level she had been in the games, but she was no longer a grub. Her horns were much more developed and so were her limbs, though they still retained traces of grub-pudge. 

She had a shell now too, but it wasn’t that tough yet. She was perhaps at the equivalent of a late tween, perhaps thirteen or fourteen in human age terms. Bugs matured a bit weirdly compared to how old they actually were.

“Hornet! You’re here! Erm, where is here, exactly?” Wasp asked. Hornet handed her a warm, wet washcloth, and Wasp began wiping slime off of herself while looking around the room while Hornet explained.

“We’re in the Victor’s Suites in the Colosseum of Fools, and you’ve been out for five days! I only got here a couple of days ago, and the stupid idiots who run the place wouldn’t let me in to see you even though I’m family! 

I had to win the stupid Trials to get in, which was kinda hard, but not too bad. Your inventions are genius and I’m so sorry I was such a jerk to you! You were just trying to keep everyone safe and I totally ignored you! I’m sorry!” Hornet said, tears gathering at the corners of her eyes.

“Oh Hornet, it’s okay, I forgive you. I was never mad at you anyways,” Wasp said, reaching out to Hornet for a hug, even though she was still slightly damp. Hornet flung herself into her arms and they embraced tightly, before they both drew back sharply in alarm, where they both yelled out at once.

“Hey, you can talk now! And you’ve got four arms! No fair!”

“What do you mean you had to do the Trials?!”

They both laughed a bit, but Wasp went first.

“Wait, how’d you even know to find me here, let alone get here, and why did they make you run the Trials?” Wasp asked.

“Well, Tantabus somehow knew you were here, he didn’t explain that part very well, just that he knew for certain that you were here. And they made me run the Trials because only victors of the Trials are allowed in the Victor’s Suites, no exceptions either. So, I used my fighting skills and some of the cool stuff and magic you left behind in Deepnest to crush the competition!” Hornet said proudly.

“Wait, Tantabus knew? How? And ‘he’?” Wasp inquired further.

“Yeah, he decided he wanted to be a boy, and he wasn’t sure how he knew where you were, something to do with ‘Void’?” Hornet said, “But what have you been up to? When I got here, no one would shut up about your Trial, and how you were somehow incapacitated, but know one really knew much more than that, and then I had to beat the Trial of the Conquoror to be allowed to see you, and you were in this weird cocoon, so I figured you were finally molting and I just decided to wait until you were done.”

“Oh. Well, good for him! And that does kinda make sense. I’m a being of Void, and I used a little bit of my own Void to make Tantabus, so figures we’d be connected somehow. Magic is bullshit like that, err, I mean...it’s dumb like that,” Wasp finished lamely, belatedly forgetting to curb her tongue around young, impressionable ears.

“Oh, don’t bother with the language. Everyone here has a pretty bad pottymouth, too. Nothing I haven’t already heard a million times by now,” Hornet said blandly.

“Oh. Well, that’s good I guess. I haven’t had to watch my language at all, at first ‘cause I didn’t have a mouth and couldn’t swear even if I wanted to, and then I was off away from anyone I felt the need to watch my language around. I’d probably slip up so much that it would’ve been a near-useless effort anyway.”

“ _Speaking_ of which, heh, you’ve got a mouth now, and four arms and eyes, too! And a tail! I don’t know anyone else besides father that has a tail _and_ legs!” Hornet said excitedly, “D’you think I’ll get extra arms too? Maybe I’m just a late bloomer? I’ve still got plenty of molting left to do!”

“Oh, uh, well I guess it might happen, but I wouldn’t get too excited just in case. And, uh...about...your father...um, damn, this is difficult. How much do you like him?” Wasp asked awkwardly. Hornet was now old enough to understand the circumstances of both of their births, and Wasp wanted to explain that as soon as possible. She didn’t want Hornet within ten miles of the Pale Forkhead.

“How much do I like him? Um, he’s...okay? I guess. He doesn’t talk to me much, but when he does it’s always weird. He always wants to talk about Deepnest, even though mother said not to tell him anything about Tantabus or The Wall or any of the cool stuff you’ve made,” Hornet said with a hint of confusion, “No one will ever tell me about stuff anyway! Let alone the why’s!”

“Oh, well. I guess you’re old enough so I can tell you about where I came from and who I am. Pardon my French, but the Pale King is a baby-murdering twat-waffle, and I don’t want you within ten miles of him, ever, and especially never alone!” Wasp said.

“What’s french? And what does twat-waffle mean?” Hornet asked curiously, “Wait, he killed babies?!”

“Oh. Damn. Maybe you’re not old enough…” Wasp trailed off.

“No! I’m sick of nobody ever telling me anything! I made it all the way here by myself and beat the first two Trials! Spill! I think I’ve earned that much!” Hornet demanded.

Wasp took a deep breath she didn’t need and began.

“Alright, that’s fair. Forget about the French thing though, it’s just a stupid figure of speech about cursing and ‘twat-waffle’ is an insult, albeit a sort of nonsensical one. It basically means asshole, but it’s one of my personal favorites. 

As for the more serious matter, well. Hornet, we’re actually half-siblings by blood. The Pale King sired both of us, but your mom is Herrah and mine is the White Lady. The Pure Vessel is my full-sibling, and your half-sibling too. The Vessels were meant to be emotionless machines, but none of us actually turned out that way.

The Pale King had tons of kids with the White Lady, thousands of us. He threw our eggs into this pit at the bottom of the world called the Abyss. There’s a substance called Void that forms down there, and the Pale King thought that by harnessing it or imbuing it into a living being, he could contain the infection and save everyone.

But that’s not how it worked out. It imbued us with Void all right, but it didn’t do anything to our emotions. The Pale King came down to the Abyss once all the eggs hatched to try and find one--just one--Pure Vessel that didn’t have a mind or emotions.

The one that’s in the White Palace right now is a bug just like me, but they pretend to not have a mind or emotions to make the King happy. I hatched really early, like, weeks before any of the other eggs did. 

Y’know how the Pale King can see the future sometimes?” Wasp asked. Hornet seemed very shocked at all the info, but nodded.

“Well, I got a kinda screwed-up version of it. I saw a future, a really bad one. The Pale King sealed the infection away in what he thought was a Pure Vessel, me actually, and everything went to shit. The plan didn’t work and I watched as the kingdom crumbled away and rotted.

Another Vessel, the one that’s at the White Palace now, somehow escaped being locked away in the Abyss. Once the king thought he found a Pure Vessel, he locked the door and left all the other Vessels down there to rot.

Anyway, they somehow escaped and returned to the crumbling kingdom after wandering the Wastes for ages…” Wasp continued to explain the events of her ‘vision’.

“And then they Ascended into the Shade Lord, the Void United. They destroyed the Radiance for good and saved everyone, including future-me, who’d been locked up in the Temple for so long that I was almost dead and one of my arms had rotted off due to the infection. 

When the vision was finally over, I knew I had to do something, so I decided to get started saving the kingdom early, and so I trained and hid right next to the door so when the Pale King walked through, I hit him over the head with a club I’d made out of one of the weird bone-spikes that are down there and made a break for it.

I managed to get into the Stagways but I got lost and instead of the Resting Grounds, I ended up in Deepnest, and the rest, as they say, is history,” Wasp finished.

Hornet was silent for a long time before she leapt to her feet and started pacing back and forth, shouting.

“That...that…! _Bastard!_ He did all that?! He killed so many babies because they were bugs that had feelings and stuff?! How could he?! I always thought the Pure Vessel was weird, but now I know why! 

...He hurts them, you know? He doesn’t really do it in front of me, but I’ve caught him slapping them around a few times ‘cause he was mad! He wasn’t even mad at them, he was just mad and took it out on them!

He killed all my other siblings…! Oh, _gods_...there were thousands, weren’t there? And they’re all dead, aren’t they?” Hornet whispered, horrified. She looked ill.

Wasp leapt up and gathered her into a hug. She tried to soothe her distraught half-sister. It took a long time for Hornet to stop crying.

She she finally stopped, she gave Wasp an extremely serious look.

“So, Wasp, my brilliant, mad sister...what’s the plan?”

Wasp smiled wickedly, tiny baby fangs on full display. Hornet returned the look with gusto.

“Well, I’m ever-so-glad you asked! You see…”

And so they planned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hehe more Hornet! :D also we finally get contact from ROB! betchu weren't expecting that! lol the ROB won't interfere all that much after this, but now Wasp knows for sure that they're real, and she's got Ideas guys. nobody fucks with Wasp and gets away unscathed unless she allows it! >:) 
> 
> she literally made a god, by complete accident. by using her brain. what kinds of crazy shit do you think she'll be able to get up to once she has ascended to godhood and become the Nothing itself? nobody tells oblivion itself what to do. no one. the lord of shades answers to only those it allows to have power over it. like hornet using puppy dog eyes, lol :D
> 
> also that godseeker bit o_O
> 
> yeah...i headcanon that when a higher being fades, their domain is then sorta up for spiritual grabs, but only for certain qualified individuals, and wasp has really been bringing the thunder, lol. if a higher being gets got by someone in particular though, then to the victor go the spoils, and all that :)
> 
> like, even animals dream. the dream god fading would not suddenly make dreams themselves not exist, they'd just not have a representation anymore, until some shmuck proves themselves worthy
> 
> magic can have consequences kiddos! higher-tier magic anyway


	19. WELCOME TO THE THUNDER-DOME! LLLLET'S GET READY TO RUUUUUMBLE!!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> bit of a shorter one, but we finally wrap up at the colosseum! :) wasp and hornet are so good everyone else looks like chumps in comparison. sorry for not going into more depth, but i kinda suck ass at fight scenes, especially long complicated ones :/

Hornet and Wasp schemed late into the night, and when it was time for Hornet to go to sleep, Wasp stayed awake after Hornet retreated to her private suite. 

The gross Void cocoon had evaporated shortly after she exited it, so aside from a rumpled bed, everything was normal in Wasp’s room.

Wasp saw that someone had propped Raid up against the opposite wall, somehow. No one but her was supposed to be able to lift it, so how had it gotten there? It hadn’t been there before when she was talking with Hornet either!

_ Okay, what the fuck. Also, why’s the ribbon black now? And...Raid’s made of metal now...what? _

Wasp picked up her trusty club that had been with her since the beginning. Somehow, it had changed. Before, it had been made of some kind of bone-like material and the ‘runes’ she’d carved in it looked sharp, jagged and somewhat sloppy.

Now, Raid gleamed in the light of the lumafly lanterns, clearly made of metal, with the crude designs having flowed and morphed into a familiar rippling pattern of lines and whorls in the metal. The words could still be made out faintly when the light hit the metal at the right angles.

Wasp checked her hammerspace and felt that she was two pieces of Pale Ore short.

_ Okay, how in the hell…? And why? This looks like the Pure Nail did, except as a club with a ribbon-wrapped handle, but it only used two pieces of Pale Ore? Hmmm… _

Raid seemed to hum in her grip, and Wasp felt the familiar crackle of electricity between her horns, like those weird little wire contraptions that let the electricity flow upwards between them in an arc between two wires.

_ Okay, imma just chalk this up to grade-A magic BS and leave it at that. I’ve got more important things to worry about. _

Wasp spent a good portion of the night pacing and stretching in her room, trying out her new tiny baby wings and flexing her new set of arms and little stubby tail. 

She had honestly expected to have a freakout about body dysphoria or some shit like that, but she figured her new bug brain would probably be wired to handle molting and growing additional limbs.

Everything felt natural and she already knew how to fly, which was awesome. She got to work inventing a couple more gadgets for Hornet to help her keep up with Wasp’s sheer mobility while she schemed. 

If Wasp was gonna imitate both Thor and Loki in terms of battle-strats, then Hornet would be Iron Man with an infinite amount of gadgets to help her stand on the same level as actual gods!

They would presumably be traveling together now, and knowing Hornet, she would insist on also completing the Trial of the Fool with her. She hoped the Colosseum allowed teams, or Wasp was gonna have to throw hands with the management, and Hornet would help her.

_ After we finish kicking the shit outta the Colosseum, it’s on to the Mantis Village, where we’ll kick the asses of the Mantis Lords to be allowed in the Village without being constantly jumped, and then we’ll figure out just what in the hell was up with the not-yet-a-traitor-lord lord, as well as why Ze’mer and the mantis she has the hots for aren’t allowed to get together. _

_ I swear if it’s some homophobic or racist bullshit, imma flip my shit and kick asses repeatedly until they stop being fucking morons. Seriously, what the fuck does it matter what kind of junk you’re into, as long as it’s between two consenting adults?! _

_ Anyway, once our stint in the Mantis Village is over, we hunt down Master Hu’s grave and kick ghostly ass before making our way to Fog Canyon and smacking Uumuu around.  _

_ Then, it’s back to Deepnest to spar with Herrah and her guards and ganking Nosk and ghost-Galien before making for the Hive, where we will hopefully just spar with the appropriate people before leaving and not causing an international political incident. _

_ Then, we hit up the City of Tears and climb the Watcher’s Spire to gank the Watcher Knights, then we beat Hegemol into the ground before hauling ass to the Queen’s Gardens and beating Marmu and the last two Knights before confronting the White Lady. That will be interesting and hopefully not completely fucking suck ass. _

_ If the White Lady refuses to respect my personhood after I cuss her the fuck out for helping with the fucking awful Vessel Plan, then imma feel way less guilty if I have to beat her ass to get the stupid Godtuner to do its thing. _

_ Then, we storm the castle to commit Grand Theft Charm before hauling ass to the Abyss as fast as fucking possible so I can no-sell the stupid door by either tricking it with my magical skeleton-key hax or by just digging through the wall or under the door. _

_ Then, I do the same thing to the Lifeblood door before throwing hands with the Abyss Creature. I’ll probably solo that one, ‘cause I dunno how the Abyss would affect a non-Void bug, and I’m not exposing Hornet to the horror-pit at the bottom anyway. _

_ Then we super-haul ass to the Junk Pit where Hornet will guard the Godseeker and keep a lookout while I Ascend to godhood and gank the moth bitch, saving everyone. _

_ Finally, I deal with the Pale Baby-Killer and steal Ghost away before making a strategic retreat into Deepnest and fucking locking that place down with the Fallout Protocol. Then, we just wait for everything to blow over and after that, I dunno. _

_ I’ll figure that part out when I get to it. _

* * *

The next day, Hornet woke up bright and early and went to see her sister. She’d spent a long time processing the whole conversation and mentally renouncing her sire.

She didn’t want anything to do with someone so horrible.

She entered Wasp’s room and blanched at the giant mess it had become. Silk-paper sheets were strewn everywhere, laden with strange diagrams and scribbles. Stone chips and metal shards littered the floor, and in the center of the room, Wasp sat hunched over some new strange device that would undoubtedly break the laws of magic or physics or something along those lines. They always did.

“Wasp? It’s morning, do you want to go get some breakfast? You can eat now, right?” Hornet asked.

“Whozzat? Huh, oh, hi Hornet! Quick, com’ere, I need to test some stuff!” Wasp said before she rushed over and shoved something that looked like a stone collar at her.

“What’s this?” Hornet asked warily.

“Oh, it’s a communication device! You wear it around your neck and when you talk, the person wearing the matching collar can hear you, no matter how far away you are! They can pick up on your voice even if you whisper, so they’re great for combat! You can make plans on the fly and share them with your partner with the enemy none-the-wiser!”

“That does sound useful! What’re those other things? The weird ring things?” Hornet said, taking the stone collar but not yet putting it on.

“Oh! These are for you too, I call them the ‘Vaulting Greaves of Valtorr’! They’re like anklets, but they create a solid surface to stand on when you activate them mid-air! Here, try them on!” Wasp said, also handing her the sturdy-looking stone anklets. Surprisingly, they weighed almost nothing, despite being made of solid stone. The collar was the same way, Hornet noticed belatedly.

Seeing that she wouldn’t be escaping her sister’s clutches without at least trying everything on, Hornet complied.

Both the greaves and the collar had an invisible hinge that opened, allowing her to clip the devices around her throat and ankles.

Both devices glowed briefly before shrinking to fit her. The collar was snug but didn’t constrict anything. Still, having something around her neck like this would take a bit of getting used to.

“Now try imagining you’re going up a set of invisible stairs, and the greaves should do the rest!” Wasp chirped.

Hornet greatly enjoyed hearing her sister’s voice. Though it sounded quite odd compared to any other voice she’d heard, it matched Wasp perfectly. Though, the strange echo reminded her of the Pale King’s voice, but not that much. Wasp sounded kind and happy, as well as still a bit childish, but it was also noticeably feminine.

Hornet obeyed the strange instructions, and only startled a little bit at the strange glowing mandala that appeared beneath her hoof-claws. Though made of pure Soul, the surface felt solid like stone.

“Oh! This is neat!” Hornet said, walking further up and then around the room, giggling.

“Yeah, it’ll help your maneuverability a lot! I thought about giving you a set of Empress Wings like I had before, but the Soul cost was kinda high, and the greaves don’t cost anything, so.”

“You had wings? I didn’t know that!” Hornet said from her high vantage point. She was enjoying walking around on thin air like it was solid ground.

“Oh, that’s right...I made them just before I left so I could traverse the terrain faster, but since I molted finally, I grew wings of my own so I didn’t need them anymore. I can maintain a really high continuous Soul-output without too much trouble, so they were fine for me to use, but if a non-Vessel tried doing the same, they’d burn through their reserves pretty quick and probably strain their Soul pool,” Wasp explained.

“Oh, that makes sense...still, having wings must be fun...I don’t understand why mother has so many legs and eyes and spinnerets, and the Pale King has even more legs and wings, and I didn’t get any of it! Why did I only get stuck with the bare minimum for anyone that isn’t a slug?!” Hornet said, frustrated, “Even you got extra eyes, and the Pale King and the White Lady only have two each! How’s that fair?!”

Hornet refused to cry over this, since she wasn’t a grub anymore, but she felt tears gathering in her eyes anyway. She returned to the ground and tried to hold them back and not sniffle like a baby, but she’s pretty sure she failed, since Wasp came running over to comfort her.

“Oh, Hornet...I’m sorry,” Wasp said, “I can’t promise anything right now, but I know the Pale King used a magic ritual to make the Pure Vessel grow as fast as they are. I could try and make something similar, a safer, painless ritual to make you grow extra arms and stuff, if that’s what you want? I don’t know how rituals work, but I’ll learn! I’m known for doing the impossible, so this is just the next thing I can work on! The laws of magic won’t know what hit them!”

Hornet could only hug her sister back and sniffle out a heartfelt, “Thank you, Wasp.”

“Anything for family,” She replied.

* * *

They soon emerged and went to go find some late breakfast. The little mess hall that existed for gladiators was mostly empty, but those that were there all turned to stare at Wasp intently and whisper amongst themselves.

“What’re you lot lookin’ at?!” Wasp bellowed. Black electricity sparked from her horns and everyone quickly found other things to look at and talk about.

“Woah, so that’s what everyone was talking about when they were calling you the Thunder Goddess! I know you can use your club to shoot lightning, but everyone was saying you called down a storm in the middle of the cave! I didn’t know if I believed them at first, but clearly you did something!” Hornet said excitedly as they collected a selection of food, mostly exotic-looking meats, before seating themselves at a smaller private table.

“Oh, yeah, I forgot to tell you about that! Well, I’ve been experimenting with magic and spells, and I figured out how to make lightning all by myself! I overdid it a bit when I was fighting the Oblobbles at the end of the Trial and some weird magic stuff happened and I passed out and must have started molting right then or something, cause when I woke up, I was busting my way outta my cocoon!”

“Oh, neat! I’ve learned some magic of my own! I even figured out how to make silk outta Soul, which no-one else has ever been able to do! Your way of doing magic is way easier than the normal way, even if it doesn’t always make sense!” Hornet said proudly.

“Wow! So you can weave all on your own now, that’s awesome! And hey, maybe I can teach you more cool tricks too! Wait, what do you mean my way? I know I published a couple of spell-books way back when, but my methods evolved a lot since then, especially once I started construction on Tantabus. How’s he doing, by the way?”

“Oh, he’s doing fine, he took over The Wall’s systems and runs Deepnest pretty much. Mother loves him, since he helps keep the wildlife away from the greenhouses and a bunch of other little things that just makes mother’s job as Queen way easier. 

She’s had way more time to hang out with me, and she taught me how to use the super-cool Needle you made me! The name is very fitting and the way it glows in when a hidden enemy is near is super useful!”

“Heh, glad you like Sting! It was fun making it! But, the magic thing?”

“Oh, mother and I cleared out your workshop a bit, we mostly just organized things and took out any stuff that you’d labelled as finished. We stumbled across your reference guides to runes and stuff completely by accident, and once we figured out what we were looking at, mother had a bunch of copies made and made them available for anyone to have! Deepnest has a bunch of budding mages now, myself included! Even mother learned a little bit!” Hornet said with pride.

“Oh! Wow, I’m glad you found them then, I honestly didn’t even think about that before I left!”

* * *

They talked more about all kinds of things while they ate. Wasp greatly enjoyed tasting things again, and she was excited to discover and rediscover favorite foods. The strange, slightly-sour juice reminded her of the little treasures she had hidden away in her hammerspace.

“Oh, Hornet, that reminds me, I’ve got one last thing for you before we start the last Trial!” Wasp said, pulling out one of Isma’s Tears.

“Woah, Wasp where’d you get that?! Those are really dangerous!” Hornet said, jumping back from the outstretched fruit.

“Huh? I just got it from Isma’s weird haunted grove in the Royal Waterways. Traded a magic tree a little woven spell matrix for, like, five of the little fuckers. I figured I could take one back to Deepnest to cultivate more maybe, but I thought acid immunity for all my friends and family would be really useful, since a lot of Hallownest predators spit acid, and this makes acid a non-issue.”

“Wasp, what are you talking about? Those things are super poisonous! You shouldn’t even be holding it! Quick, we need to go wash your hands!” Hornet said, grabbing onto her arm and practically dragging her back to the suite to wash her hands in the little private bath there.

“Wait, whatta you mean they’re poisonous? I figured out how to eat stuff without a mouth and I was just fine! They make you immune to acid if you eat one, and I took a nice warm acid bath right after and was totally fine!”

“You did _WHAT?!”_ Hornet shrieked.

* * *

It took a while to sort that mess out. Turns out Isma’s Tears were used in the manufacturing of anti-venoms and other medicines all over the kingdom, but they were hella poisonous on their own, and even touching one could cause certain species problems.

Also, turns out Vessels aren’t affected by poisons, like, at all, since Void was Void and having your insides made out of it came with some perks.

Nobody knew that eating one made you immune to acid, since the only one able to eat them was Isma, and she was already immune to poisons and acid of all kinds.

So, that left Wasp in a bit of a pickle, since she really wanted to have her friends and family be immune to one of the most common forms of attack in Hallownest, but they couldn’t eat one without dying immediately.

So Wasp and Hornet put their heads together, and after a couple of days, they’d managed to come up with a solution.

The solution to the problem was to continually cast a sort of ‘cure poison’ spell on the bug eating the Tear while they did so, and for a few hours after the fact, to let the Tear be digested fully.

They’d tested the method extensively on some Hoppers they’d captured outside the Colosseum and tested the acid immunity using a captured Primal Aspid. Wrangling that thing had been an ordeal, but it was doable thanks to Wasp’s acid immunity.

One of Wasp’s Tears was sacrificed in the name of Science, but it had been worth it. Hornet was now immune to acid, and the pair had had a fantastic time going to the cliffs below the Colosseum and splashing around. 

Hornet’s cloak was even included in the effect, which was super convenient, but made sense once Wasp remembered the Knight’s Nail being fine even when it wasn’t technically part of their body in the game.

* * *

Now that everything was ready, it was time to attempt the Trial of the Fool. Turns out battle pairs were allowed, but that was it. Only pairs, and their prize money would be split between them.

That was fine, and apparently the pairs rule had been implemented at the request of the current Colosseum Champion, God Tamer. A pretentious title if you asked Wasp, but whatever.

Hopefully they didn’t have to kill God Tamer’s beast, since she seemed really attached to the thing in the game, completely forfeiting the fight in despair once it was dead. Wasp would feel like she was killing someone’s dog in front of them if she did that.

Lord Fool had even returned from wherever he had been to watch the Trial of the Fool, as was customary. When Wasp and Hornet emerged into the ring, the crowd went wild, chanting ‘Thun-der! Thun-der! Thun-der!’ over and over. Wasp, ever the dramatic bitch, let off a small bolt into the sky, much to the crowd’s delight.

Wasp wasn’t worried about hitting Hornet, since she’d added an extra set of spells to the collar. It made Hornet immune to Wasp’s Void lightning, but neither of them was sure if it would protect her from regular electricity, so she’d still do her best to avoid that.

“Let the Trial of the Fool commence! Show us all how Foolish you are!” Lord Fool shouted out from his posh throne. He was being fanned and brought refreshments from a multitude of attendants, like all the stereotypical depictions of Julius Caesar. 

The first wave of enemies emerged, and Wasp and Hornet fought like a well-oiled machine, with only a few slip-ups early on. Wasp acted as the distraction and AOE attacker while Hornet darted around, stabbing unaware foes in the back, like a true spider.

The communication collars were dead useful, and they whispered plans and their own locations to each other during the fight.

Hornet made liberal use of her new greaves and other traps and gadgets, as well as her silk. Wasp was her typical bombastic self, cursing up a storm and trash-talking the warriors to distract them from the threat that was Hornet.

Wasp also got to bust out her defensive wards and spells for the first time in a real fight. Any time it looked like Hornet was about to get hit, a magical shield sprang up in front of her, blocking the hit, followed by Wasp blasting the offending party into smithereens with her lightning.

The Void-tainted electricity passed over Hornet harmlessly, making the crown go wild.

Hornet was starting to flag a bit though. This Trial was much longer than the other two, and she was beginning to tire. Wasp was as fresh as ever, and began carrying more and more of the fight, until she suggested that Hornet use her greaves to take up a higher position so she could snipe kills by throwing her Needle before reeling it in. 

Wasp dumped a bunch of defensive spells on top of her position so she could snipe with impunity while Wasp continued to cause carnage with her sweeping attacks.

Her fighting style really was best suited to large groups of lesser enemies, while Hornet excelled at single combat.

Wasp didn’t let herself get tricked by the mimic in the jar, and had already warned Hornet that it was a fake, so she didn’t freak out when Wasp ruthlessly smashed it into a formless paste without even letting the thing out of its jar.

Soon enough, the Trial was nearing its end, but there was one last opponent. While the Colosseum fights were usually to the death, Wasp and Hornet had already discussed trying to incapacitate God Tamer instead.

They’d kill her if they had to, but they’d really rather not. Hornet emerged from her little sniper’s nest to join the fight where she’d be more useful. She’d had a chance to rest a bit, so Wasp felt okay allowing her to join the fight.

God Tamer emerged from the other side of the arena, and her beast shrieked at them. Wasp shrieked right back, seemingly surprising God Tamer. Wasp really didn’t sound like a civilized bug when she did that, but it wasn’t like she cared what others thought of her.

God Tamer herself dismounted and the beast curled up to begin its rolling attack. Wasp simply flew over it and Hornet used her greaves.

The beast smacked into the opposite wall and uncurled, having suffered no damage from the impact. God Tamer rushed towards them swinging her giant sword-cleaver-thing. 

Wasp let Hornet take care of God Tamer while she focused on fighting the beast.

In all honesty, the fight was actually kind of boring. The beast was just that: a beast. It didn’t try to trick her or use advanced tactics, it just rushed at her and tried to spit acid at her occasionally which Wasp didn’t even bother trying to dodge. 

Neither of them were infected, which meant the beast’s acid was useless against either of them. Wasp tried shocking the beast with a much lower-powered bolt to incapacitate it.

No dice. The beast’s plates were very thick, and Wasp would have to use a lethal amount of electricity if she wanted to attack it that way, and again, she didn’t want to kill it unless she had to.

_ Time to see if ‘Graboid no Jutsu’ will work on a target this big! _

She quickly whispered her plan to Hornet before executing it.

She dove beneath the ground and the beast’s location was clear as day due to all the vibrations it caused just by moving around.

Wasp released her Void tentacles, and was surprised by how easily she controlled them now. She resolved to deal with it later and used their increased dexterity and strength to drag the enormous beast underground.

It bucked and fought like a motherfucker, but Wasp persevered. It was eventually dragged beneath the earth with only the top of its face showing. It struggled against the magic holding it down, but Wasp wasn’t one of the strongest mages in Hallownest for nothing!

Wasp resurfaced to find that Hornet had completely tied up God Tamer in silk. They were both trapped. The Godtuner hummed in her hammerspace. 

_ Yes! _

“Hey! Uh, Lord Fool sir!” Wasp called out. Lord Fool, intrigued, leaned forward and responded.

“Yes, little warrior?”

“Um, I know these types of things are usually to the death and all, but me and my sister aren’t planning on sticking around and being the Colosseum Champions after this, we’ve got lots of things we need to do, but if we killed God Tamer, there wouldn’t be a big finale at the end for other bugs to fight. Since we’ve quite clearly defeated both of them, can we call the match finished?” Wasp said, hoping that Lord Fool would see her point.

“Hmmm, this is true...very well! As Lord of this Colosseum, I declare the challengers the winners! God Tamer shall remain as Acting Champion until she is defeated by one who wishes to become the new Champion!” Lord Fool roared out.

Wasp fired off a couple of novelty spells she had made that replicated fireworks. The crowd was captivated by the multitude of exploding colors and loud noises.

When the short barrage of fireworks was over, the crowd cheered and threw money, which disappeared mid-air, and Wasp and Hornet freed their respective captives.

“I don’t understand why you have decided to spare me or my beast, but I am grateful nonetheless. You were very worthy opponents! Your creativity and spellcasting is admirable, I hope my future fights are just as interesting!” God Tamer said, walking over to her dirt-covered beast and giving it gentle pats.

Wasp just nodded and led Hornet back out the entrance.

* * *

“What a spectacular ending! No one’s ever completed the Trial of the Fool and NOT wanted to become Champion after winning! The show at the end was amazing too! I’ve never seen colored fire before!” Little Fool said excitedly.

“They’re called fireworks,” Wasp said, “Now, since we’ve won the Trial of the Fool, we get to leave a personalized mark on the Trial Board, right? I’ve already got a design in mind.”

“Oh? Well, go ahead and place your hands on the Trial Board together, since you both technically won, and think of the design and the Colosseum will take care of the rest!” Little Fool said.

“Is it okay if we go with my design?” Wasp asked Hornet.

“Sure! You’re way more creative anyway. My idea was just a copy of our masks, but I’m sure yours is cooler,” Hornet said.

They placed their hands on the Trial Board together and a black shape etched itself into the Board next to the marks of previous Champions.

The shape consisted of small curling bits with two sets of large swooping tendrils, almost resembling horns.

“Woah, that _is_ cool! What is it?” Hornet asked.

“It’s called a Void Idol. Those who know what it truly represents fear it,” Wasp said solemnly, “That rat bastard is gonna pay for every tiny life he took. That’s a promise.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yeahhhh, never eat strange fruit you find in a sewer, even if a seemingly-magic tree gives it to you. actually, ESPECIALLY if a magic tree gives you fruit don't eat it. shit's probably cursed or deadly or sum shit like that
> 
> good thing void is bullshit hax
> 
> also Hornet is now immune to acid! bathtime is way more interesting now, and it gets her extra-clean, by virtue of fucking dissolving anything that isn't her or wasp :) 
> 
> herrah's not going to have a heart attack the first time she catches them frolicking in one of deepnest's few acid pits at alllll. 
> 
> The Plan (TM) has gotten fleshed out a bit but no plan survives contact with the enemy, as wasp knows very well >:) 
> 
> also some foreshadowing with hornet. wasp means it when she says she will do anything for family. bitches better watch out, wasp's back on her bullshit. well, she never actually stopped, but you get the point!


	20. This Is Why You Always Use Protection. Goddamn Magical STB's! (Specially Transmitted Bullshit)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ahahahaha!! you all thought i forgot about wasp wanting to visit the cast-off shell, didn't you?! well, ya'll mf-ers were WRONG ahahaha!! >:D

The rapid buzzing of wings was accompanied by the thwip-swoosh of a Needle being hurtled through the air at a truly impressive speed. 

“Woooo!” Hornet shouted in glee as she swung in great arcs through the air by throwing and detaching her Needle from floating platforms to keep up with her winged sister.

“~Spider-Wyrm, Spider-Wyrm, does whatever a Spider-Wyrm does!~” Wasp sang as the pair raced through Kingdom’s Edge to find the Cast-Off Shell of their mutual DNA donor.

Wasp wasn’t sure what they’d find there, but she wanted to check it out anyway.

It didn’t take the pair long to find the small entrance that led to the old carcass. Once the tunnel grew narrower, the sisters made their way forward on foot.

“So, what are we looking for again?” Hornet asked, “I mean, I know we’re looking for a huge-ass Wyrm carcass, but why did you wanna go there anyway?”

“There might be cool magic shit, or there might be nothing, but we won’t know until we check!” Wasp said. The flakes of molt in the air seemed to grow more numerous as they pressed forwards, and soon enough Wasp laid eyes on the Cast-Off Shell for the first time.

_Oh holy fucknuggets this thing is enormous! Look at those teeth! Damn, I can see why Wyrms were feared if this is how big they got!_

“Woah,” Horned said quietly, “It’s massive!”

“Hell yeah it is, lemme take a quick peeksie first to make sure we don’t accidentally set off any magic traps or alarms,” Wasp said, switching to her Mage Sight.

The Cast-Off Shell glowed brightly, but not blindingly so. There was a metric ass-ton of residual magic left over, but nothing that was active or directed towards a purpose as far as she could tell.

“Coast looks clear, but let’s be careful just in case,” Wasp cautioned.

“What’d it look like to your magic-senses? Mine’s making all my sensor-hairs stand on end!” Hornet said, doing a little shake like she was trying to flick water off of herself.

That had been an interesting discovery for Wasp. Turns out Hornet had gotten some spider traits from Herrah after all, one of them being the near-microscopic hairs that grew all over her body on the parts not covered by chitin plates. 

They sensed vibrations in the air, and Hornet’s in particular could sense magic in high enough concentrations or close proximity.

You couldn’t really see them, but you could feel them if you got your fingers near Hornet’s joints or where there was no plating yet, like on the front of her neck.

Those same places also happened to be very ticklish, a fact Wasp had ruthlessly exploited when the two of them had gotten into a tickle fight the night after they’d won the Trial of the Fool.

Lord Fool had thrown a massive party with all kinds of delicious food, as well as booze that Hornet and Wasp both stayed away from. 

Wasp and Hornet had had a sort of slumber party together that night, and there had been gossip and snacks and girl talk, followed by a pillow fight that had morphed into a tickle fight before they finally settled down and slept cuddled up to each other in a big pillow-nest Wasp had made on the floor.

It had been some of the happiest memories Wasp had ever made, human or otherwise.

The sisters cautiously entered the gaping maw of the rotting shell and made their way inside, with Wasp providing Hornet with enough light to see by with a whispered ‘Lumos’.

The shell was like a big, empty cavern, but what Wasp was interested in was the egg-like casing near the back of the carcass. There was a solid wall of collapsed shell and rotting chitin that blocked off everything else, but just like in the game, the egg-like structure lit up with runes, real ones, once Wasp got close.

She flicked her Mage Sight back on, and saw the immensely-complex web of magic that covered the thing.

Like an ogre, it had many different layers, each one more complicated than the last, but surrounding the whole thing, Wasp saw a collection of runes that essentially said if the magic found you worthy, you’d be granted the King’s Brand.

What qualified as being found worthy, Wasp didn’t know, and the runes to decipher that little tidbit would take her days to unravel, there were so many.

_I can’t believe the King’s Brand is just fucking sitting here for any random asshole to bumble across! Wait, so what if someone worthy found it and took it while the Pale King was still alive?_

_In the games it makes a reference to the kingdom recognizing a new ruler, so does it take the King’s Brand away from the current holder, or does it just mean there’s two at once?_

_Must...resist...urge...to...touch...big...glowy...button...!_

One thing this did tell her though, was that she’d have to dig around the door or find another way into the Abyss if that didn’t work, because the King’s Brand was actually way-the-fuck more complicated than she thought it was at first.

She started trying to parse out some of the simpler rune sequences that made it up, and one thing quickly became very clear.

The Pale King was a mind-controlling douche as well as a baby-murdering douche.

_If those rune sequences mean what I think they mean, then this thing low-key induces feelings of awe, respect, and obedience towards whoever is in possession of it when the victim was at close-to-mid range!_

Suddenly, the way the Pale King glowed seemed a lot more sinister.

 _“Sweet baby Jesus in the manger, it’s Reaper Indoctrination…!”_ Wasp breathed in disgusted, horrified awe.

“What? Wasp, I didn’t understand any of that, what were those weird noises you just made? Is something wrong?” Hornet asked.

_Shit, must have said that in English…_

“Uh, yeah, something’s wrong! The King’s Brand is a low-key mind control sigil! Anyone who’s close enough to see the Pale Worm’s light gets subtly mind-raped to worship and obey the pointy-headed fuck!

 _“WHAT?!”_ Hornet shouted, appropriately shocked, horrified, and outraged all at once.

“This thing is evil, and so’s the king! Well, I mean we already kinda knew about the king being an asshole of the highest caliber, but this really takes the cake! Hell, it takes the whole damn bakery!” Wasp said, slightly hysterical.

“Wait, if that’s true, why wasn’t I or mother affected? She doesn’t have a lick of respect for him, and I was never really in awe of him when I stayed with him at the palace, but then again, I never really spent all that much time with him…” Hornet said uncertainly.

“I think it has to do with how much time you spend around him, the thing is powerful, but also subtle. Herrah never stayed in his presence longer than absolutely necessary and you’re related to him, so maybe your magic kinda repels his or something? I’m not sure, I’d have to really pick this thing apart to find out exactly how it ticks, but that would take forever!”

“Okay, that makes more sense, and it also explains why all the royal retainers and servants in the White Palace are all so weird! They hardly dare to breathe wrong in his presence, and every time he says something, they act like it’s the smartest thing they’ve ever heard...I don’t think I’ve ever heard anybody disagree with him on even the smallest thing, besides the White Lady, but she’s a Higher Being too, so maybe she’s immune?” Hornet hypothesized.

“It’s likely. I think also just having really good mental discipline might help diminish the effects so you don’t turn into a blathering, sycophantic loser the second he walks into the room.”

“This is crazy...what are we going to do about it?” Hornet asked.

“Well, I really don’t wanna just leave this thing lying around for someone to pick up, and I’m also curious as to what would happen if I started fucking with it. I think we should set up camp somewhere nearby for a couple of days while I tear this thing apart to get rid of the evil mind-control bullshit before nicking it. It’d be a glorious ‘fuck-you’ and also would let me bypass the door to the Abyss without having to spend ages magically picking the lock.”

“I can’t say I’m thrilled at the idea of you messing with it, but you make good points...fine, just be careful! I’ll go hunting for dinner and set up camp somewhere while you do your thing.”

Wasp nodded and retrieved a large travel-pack from her hammerspace before handing it off to Hornet.

“Alright, here’s the camping supplies, and contact me with the collar if you need me once you’re done, I don’t want you to get too close when I’m elbow-deep in this thing’s magic-guts.”

Hornet nodded before running out of the shell and disappearing into the ash-choked air. Wasp turned around and cracked her joints before diving in.

“Alright, you Mind-Stone wannabe motherfucker, _let’s dance.”_

* * *

The first thing she did was set up a sort of magical Faraday-cage around the whole thing, so any potential hidden alert wards wouldn’t be able to send any kind of signal to the Pale Fuckstick while she tore this thing apart.

Wasp had long-since memorized her reference guides, so while it took a bit longer for her to pull up the info, it was all there. She pulled out some paper and began taking notes and translating Hallownest-runes into something more comprehensible, to her at any rate.

It took a good few hours just to get the first few layers translated, but Wasp persevered. After several hours of note-taking, Wasp reviewed what she had so far before getting started actually modifying the King’s Brand.

First thing she would do was rip apart the mental-influence portion of it. Minds were sacrosanct, and should always remain private. The Radiant Bitch learned that lesson the hard way.

That portion almost seemed to have been added on later, the layers weren’t interwoven with the rest of the thing, they just kinda...sat on top of it. 

_The Pale Twat-Waffle might have been a good person at one point, but it must have been a hella long time ago._

_Other than the mind-rapey part, the rest of it just seemed like a super-complex magical key-and-lock system that had security measures woven into it._

It was the worthiness aspect that was giving Wasp a hard time. That part was what was preventing anyone from just receiving or modifying the Brand right away. It seemed like...Tantabus almost. A really, really dumbed-down, primitive, half-brain-dead version of her beautiful baby boy, anyway.

Some kind of VI system as opposed to a true AI, in a sense. The system was looking for certain qualities to be met or conditions to be fulfilled.

She had discovered that one of the clauses was indeed that the Pale Worm had to be dead before anyone could take it, even if they matched everything else. So he wasn’t quite as stupid as Wasp thought at first. She still thought he was pretty stupid, though. 

_What kind of cocki_ _nany idea was the Vessel Plan anyway? It was complicated, time-consuming, risky, completely_ fucked _ethically, and there was zero guarantee it would even work!_

_Whatever, back to work._

Wasp’s Faraday-cage solved the ‘king has to be dead first’ problem, since the whole system couldn’t reach out to search for his magical signature, so it would think he was dead when it couldn’t find proof that he was alive and well.

Then she had to deal with the security measures that protected the thing. Trying to prove yourself worthy and failing would get the intrepid bug flash-fried with a fuckton of magic, so that had to go too.

The reason she couldn’t just tear that section to shreds like the mind-rapey bit was that aside from that part, the whole thing was interconnected and like a giant unstable ball of magic yarn. Cut the wrong part and the whole thing would just unravel and the Brand would disappear.

So, caution and a gentle touch was needed.

Or, Wasp could just do what she did best, and force her will onto the world and laugh as it cried.

Instead of trying to delicately unravel the whole thing, she made a magic Trojan virus. It would act like a bug was trying to get the Brand, but when the system opened itself up to scan the ‘bug’ attempting to claim it, the virus would deploy and use the Brand’s magic against it to replace all the runes with ones of Wasp’s own design.

All the requirements set forth by the king would be replaced with trivia questions about random earth memes and references, which only Wasp knew the answers to, and the mind-rapey part would be destroyed in its entirety.

Then, after the magic virus had done its job and burned itself out, Wasp would just take the quiz she’d made and make off with the Brand, laughing all the while. She’d reinforce the crumbling shell first though, so the stupid thing didn’t come crashing down on her head when she got the Brand.

She’d even make the virus change the symbol from looking like the Pale Fucker’s dumb crown-head to the Void Idol. If she was gonna have a magic tramp-stamp somewhere on her body, she’d make it look cool first!

It only took her a couple of days, working around the clock, to get everything ready. 

Wasp beheld the finished product with an unholy glee.

_Damn, I’m good!_

* * *

Using the comm-collars, Wasp informed Hornet that she was ready and that she wanted Hornet to be a witness to her newest act of mad genius.

“Alright, I’m here, so what the hell is that and what insanity is it going to inflict on the world?” Horned asked, warily looking at the ball of Soul and Void that coiled and twisted like a ball of angry centipedes in her sister’s hands.

“Shhhh...just sit back and enjoy the madness! Rona, I choose you!” Wasp cackled before throwing the magic virus at the security system. She’d named it Rona, in not-so-fond memory of the deadly virus that had butt-fucked the world for basically the entirety of 2020 back on Earth. Now, Rona would have one last go at screwing someone over, even from a different dimension!

The virus got caught in the magic field of the Brand, and then quite the lightshow ensued, looking almost like that scene from ‘Avengers: Age of Ultron’ where poor JARVIS had gotten killed by Ultron.

Rona sent lances of the Brand’s own magic back at it, switching runes around into new configurations with flashes of darkness and light and obliterating other sections before finally settling, the web of magic around the Brand now looking like someone had thrown several pots of ink at it.

Large sections of it were corrupted by Void, just as Wasp had planned. 

_Now, for the fun part!_

Wasp stepped in front of the newly-modified defense system, which droned out High Paleian in a synthetic sounding voice, “What day is it?”

“It is Wednesday, my dudes.”

“What is this?” The voice said, before a picture of an Earth butterfly appeared in front of Wasp, made out of Soul.

“A pigeon.”

“What is Tartar Sauce?”

“The grumpiest cat in the world.”

“Who, Whom, Whom’st.”

“Whomst’d.”

“Oh my god, it’s...!”

“JOHN CENA! DO DO DO DOOOO!”

“What is this?” The voice said, before displaying a picture of an avocado.

“A free-ehsh avaka-doo.”

“What is this called?” A picture of a camo pattern appeared.

“Trick question, there’s nothing there!” Wasp shouted dramatically while she pointed for effect.

A kazoo noise played, followed by the entire security matrix exploding into colorful confetti while children cheered in the background.

Wasp stepped forward and collected the modified King’s Brand, which Wasp decided to rename the Void Brand. It burned itself into her forehead, which, _ow._ She stepped out of the Faraday-cage to meet an incredulous Hornet.

“I’m not even going to bother trying to make sense of any of that. My sister’s fucking crazy,” She deadpanned while rubbing her forehead like she had a headache. Wasp just threw her head back and cackled while rubbing both sets of hands together maniacally.

“Let’s blow this popsicle stand! We’ve got asses to kick!” Wasp said, tugging Hornet along out of the Cast-Off Shell, towards adventure, but not before turning to a specific spot, flipping it the quadruple bird using all four of her arms and delivering a tirade that just felt right. 

Something about that particular patch of dirt reminded her of the Pale Asswipe, and she didn’t like it.

Wasp fielded more of Hornet’s curious questions as they practically skipped out of the Cast-Off Shell, arm in arm.

Neither of them noticed the magic surrounding the Cast-Off Shell fleeing all at once from the decaying corpse to cling to Wasp’s chitin.

But the Pale King certainly did.

* * *

The Pale King was in the middle of an important meeting with the Menderbugs, the building guild of Hallownest. A strange species of beetle that had responded a bit oddly to being granted minds of their own.

They were absolutely obsessed with building things and repairing things. Though passionate about their craft, they were very shy and practically phobic of others seeing them building or repairing structures.

He was busy discussing the details of the Temple of the Black Egg, how it was to be built, what materials, the layouts of the runic circles, things of that nature, when he felt something.

It was like getting punched in the gut.

The King’s Brand had been taken from his Cast-Off Shell, and the magic that had inhabited his old body had fled, attaching itself to a new source, merging with it, growing from it.

That was all he was able to sense before his connection with his ancient Wyrm magic was lost to him. He inhaled sharply, clutching at his chest where his King’s Brand burned against his shell. He staggered and nearly fell over. His link to his ancestral magic had been severed.

While couldn’t actually use any of the magic as he was, he was still connected to it, but not anymore, apparently.

Something had happened to the magic that comprised it. 

There was never meant to be more than one King’s Brand active at a time! The only reason the things were holding together was because the other one, the one in his old body, had been...warped.

How?! How was any of this possible? That Brand was only supposed to be accessible in the unlikely event of his death, so that someone else could step up and rule the kingdom.

He ignored the way the Menderbugs kept asking if he was okay, and roared for someone to assemble his loyal Knights, minus Dryya, _immediately._

Everyone scrambled to obey. The Pale King made his way to a chair and sat down before turning his attentions inwards to examine the magic of his Brand.

Thankfully, things seemed to have settled a bit, but the magic felt a bit unstable, especially the portion he had added on later to enhance his Light. He reached inwards and tweaked a few things, and everything settled back down.

But, what in the name of the Void was that?

_Wait..._

He doubled down on his magical senses and realized that the ‘corruption’ he’d felt earlier on the other Brand had been Void. His anger skyrocketed and he had to reign in his surging magic before he accidentally blinded somebody.

Ogrim was the first of his Knights to assemble, due to having been in the Palace already.

“Sire, what is the matter? You don’t look well!” Ogrim said in concern.

The Pale King growled softly.

“Yes, thank you Ogrim, I hadn’t noticed!” He snapped, “I do not wish to explain everything more than once, we will wait until the others have been gathered.”

“Yes, Your Majesty,” Ogrim said, bowing his head and assuming a parade rest while they waited.

The Pale King paced across the floor, trying to keep his tail from lashing too badly or gnashing his fangs. He was anxious and furious. If this whole mess was due to that blasted Flawed Vessel…!

It did not take more than a couple hours for his Knights to assemble due to their hasty summons. Isma looked a bit out of breath for how quickly she had traversed the kingdom.

“Your Majesty, I came as quick as I could once I received your urgent summons! What is the matter?”

“The matter is that someone or something, and I have a hunch as to what, has somehow bypassed my magical protections and has stolen a valuable magical artifact from the heart of my Cast-Off Shell! You will all accompany me on a short trip to Kingdom’s Edge to investigate. I must see to this matter personally, the magic has been disrupted,” The Pale King explained, “Pack for a light expedition and wait for me by the Tramway, we depart as soon as possible.”

The Knights all replied with affirmations.

“Dismissed.” He said quickly, already making his way to his quarters to dig out his seldomly-used traveling robes. As the name implied, they were made for practicality and ease of movement, not appearances, so he never wore them unless he had to.

It had been an age since he’d last gone on an expedition personally. The last time had been many years ago when he’d slain the invading Black Wyrm. Its enormous shell had become the Colosseum of Fools, that detestable place.

Thanks to his agreements with the Hive however, he couldn’t interfere much with Kingdom’s Edge, and sending in forces to drive the barbarians out would violate the agreements.

The Hive did not care about the Colosseum’s existence, and in fact, some of their warriors participated in the few non-lethal Trials the Colosseum held a few times each year.

However, the area around his Cast-Off Shell was actually Hallownest territory, so he wouldn’t be violating anything by just passing through the area with his Knights to go there.

He dug through his closet and retrieved his dusty traveling robes. He used a few quick spells to clean it and shed his formal courtly robes in favor of the more practical set.

He didn’t like how snugly it clung to his body, it showed off way too much of his profile for his liking, but needs must. 

While he needed much less food and water than a normal bug, he packed a bit of each anyway. It was better to have it and not need it, than to need it and not have it.

With the way he usually layered his more formal robes, it wasn’t apparent that he had four main arms, along with a set of proto-arms and many more pairs of much smaller, almost useless grasping legs along his sides.

The traveling robes hid nothing except the grasping legs, and he was uncomfortable with his second set of arms and proto-arms being exposed. 

Though his proto-arms could be dangerous in a combat situation as a sort of last-ditch weapon, what they were really for was holding onto a partner while mating, and he’d take that embarrassing little tidbit of Wyrm anatomy to his grave.

Only female Wyrms really used them extensively in combat, but their proto-legs were bigger and much stronger than the ones found on males, and some of them were even bladed.

Just his Root and, somewhat embarrassingly, Herrah, knew about them, and he did his best to keep them tucked as tightly to his body as he could get them, normally. As long as he didn’t move them too much, they appeared to just be slight oblong bulges along his waist and hips, and he wanted to keep it that way.

All ready for the expedition, he exited his chambers and resolutely ignored the way a royal retainer walked directly into a pillar after catching sight of him in his traveling robes.

* * *

The tram ride was agonizingly awkward, but he ignored that too, focusing on what he was going to do once they all got to his Cast-Off Shell. He’d never brought anyone to it before, and it was hidden quite well.

How someone had found it and messed with its magics, he didn’t know, but he intended to find out.

Unfortunately, of all the Knights, only Dryya was capable of flight, and not for long, in her case, and she wasn’t even on this expedition. She had to stay with his Root at all times, to keep her safe.

Though she could be a fierce fighter in the right environment and circumstances, when she wasn’t firmly rooted in the ground, there wasn’t much she could do. Due to her plant-like nature, she was tough, but quite slow otherwise. She was fully mobile on her own, but she just wasn’t fast.

If someone came after her, she wouldn’t be helpless, but it would be difficult for her to truly defend herself. Dryya stayed with her at nearly all times for this reason.

While he itched to truly spread his wings for the first time in an age, he stayed with his entourage. He had an image to maintain, and flying off on his own would not do it any favors.

* * *

Though they set a fast pace, it still took much too long in his opinion to make it to the site of his rebirth.

His Knights all had various reactions of surprise upon glimpsing what his true, primal form looked like, and how truly immense it was. He sometimes missed being so large, when he could crush most of his foes by simply coiling around them and suffocating them with his own immense weight.

As a Wyrm, he’d been unusually large for a male, but he’d misjudged how tall the average bug was and made his new form a little on the short side, much to his eternal frustration.

He’d been ever-so-close to making the decision to undergo metamorphosis again to correct that when he’d met Herrah for the first time, and she didn’t believe he was truly the fearsome Pale King of Hallownest due to how small he was.

The spiders of Deepnest were a peculiar breed that underwent physiological changes when they were selected as leader, similar to how the bees in the Hive functioned, but the bees’ transition happened when they were still grubs, not full-grown adults!

After they’d fought, she believed him, but even then, she was able to hold her own against him in single combat. It was truly frustrating.

“Wait here and guard the entrance, I need to go in and inspect everything,” He said.

“...Inside, Le’Majeste? Che’ does not understand…” Ze’mer said, antennae quivering.

“This is the place of my rebirth. When I first emerged I released a burst of magic of unrivaled proportions and granted the bugs of Hallownest minds. Inside my Cast-Off Shell, I left another artifact of great power, to be discovered in the event of my death, so that another might command the kingdom. It has been corrupted and stolen, and I intend to find out what happened here.”

His Knights were all silent at that information, perhaps grasping how dire the situation really was.

He left them behind and stepped into the rotting carcass of his old body. He reached out with his magical senses and felt a foreign magic woven into the old rotting chitin, holding it together. 

When his primal Wyrm magic fled the corpse that had housed it for centuries, the entire thing should have crumbled away to rotten ash, but it was being held together by this strange magic.

It felt fluid and dynamic in a way magic shouldn’t. Where were the constraints for the spell? There didn’t seem to be any! Would the magic just run out at some point and the shell would collapse then?

He shivered. The way that Void and Soul melded together into this strange new fluid magic felt wrong. Void and Soul were complimentary in a sense but they were supposed to be like oil and water when put together, not this strange, almost homogeneous mixture!

It was like the Soul was cradling the small Void particles and stabilizing them, keeping them from evaporating or consuming everything around them.

He reached the site that once held the King’s Brand and balked at the residual traces he could feel. It was like the magic had attacked itself! What in the hell? Wait, what was that other thing he could sense?

It was mere wisps, but it was there! He reached out to feel it and recoiled at how...hostile it felt. Even as mere echoes of itself, it tried to latch onto him and turn his magic against him!

It dissipated completely after failing to find purchase within him, and he cursed, for he could not examine the malicious bit of magic further.

He kept poking around, and eventually prodded something that agitated his Foresight! He eagerly dove into whatever vision it wanted to show him.

* * *

The Pale King found himself back in time, in terms of what was going on, and he could hardly believe his eyes! There was the Flawed Vessel, but it had changed quite dramatically! Its horns looked exactly the same, which is the only reason he knew it to be the same creature.

It had gained a second pair of arms, as well as eyes. It had wings like his and even a tail! It unnerved him how much of himself he could see in the creature.

Then, he spotted his daughter next to it! What, by the first gods, was she doing here, hanging around the Flawed Vessel?!

He hoped the vision would show him the answers, and he was surprised to receive audio input as well! That was rare for his Foresight, it usually only showed disjointed or hazy images, but he might have as well been at the scene itself when it was happening, his vision was that clear.

He settled in to observe.

* * *

What occurred was the single most confusing and terrifying sequence of events he’d ever witnessed.

The Flawed Vessel worked around the clock to tear apart his defenses and come up with a counter for it in the form of some strange Void-magics it called ‘Rona’. What a foreign sounding word...was it some forgotten Void knowledge it somehow had access to?

After witnessing the series of nonsensical exchanges it had with his mutilated and mutated defense system before stealing the now Void-tainted King’s Brand, he was sure of a few things.

Firstly, the thing was clearly quite insane, but also insanely _brilliant._ Not good.

Secondly, it commanded some strange form of magic he’d never seen before. It seemed to warp and morph at the wishes and whims of its caster, and he didn’t understand how and it was driving him crazy. Also not good.

Thirdly, _Herrah was a dirty liar who’d played him like a fiddle._ Honestly, the masterful way he’d been completely had was almost admirable. Very much not good.

He couldn’t let a slight like this go. Herrah had indeed been harboring the Flawed Vessel, which had apparently chosen both a name and gender for itself, not that he was going to use either.

He would have to do something about Deepnest, and soon. Herrah herself had sworn magical oaths to be a Dreamer, and that deadline was coming up soon, so one way or another, she’d be dealt with, but he’d send someone to sneak into Deepnest to find out what the ever-loving-hell was going on in that place.

However, just before the vision ended, the Flawed Vessel turned around and seemingly addressed him directly, despite this only being a Foresight Vision! The message was profanity-laden and somewhat intimidating.

The Flawed Vessel made four strange hand gestures consisting of the backs of its fists facing him with its middle fingers extended before exclaiming, “Imma save the fucking kingdom and you can’t do dick about it! After I eat the Radiance, your sorry tail is next, you baby-murdering fuckstick! _The bill always comes due,_ you arrogant taint-pretzel, and I intend to fucking _collect!_ C’mon Hornet, let’s bounce! This place is lame!”

_How did it know I would be seeing the past? Does it have Foresight too?! Going off of everything else it seemed to have inherited from me, I wouldn’t be entirely shocked._

The vision abruptly ended and the Pale King came back to himself quickly, and he strode out of his Cast-Off Shell.

“Your Majesty! That was fast, have you found out anything regarding the theft?” Hegemol asked.

“Yes. The Flawed Vessel has stolen the artifact and warped it using its strange Void-magics. It is also working with Deepnest, and likely has been for some time. It was accompanied by Princess Hornet of Deepnest and they seemed well acquainted. That artifact was meant to give the bearer control over certain aspects of the kingdom.

Herrah has been acting oddly recently and has made some strange allusions to things. I can only assume this is some kind of coup attempt against Hallownest. I want the bounty on the Flawed Vessel’s head tripled and I need to update its appearance before distributing more wanted posters.

As of this moment, we are at war against Deepnest. When we return to the Palace, assemble the kingsmolds and tell the Watcher to locate Revek. I have need of his services…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> soooo...that happened. o_O wasp accumulating more magical consequences by total accident and she has no idea the shitstorm she accidentally brought down on her own head, as well as deepnest's collective head.
> 
> herrah will Not Be Pleased, but she forgives them cause its not like they knew that would happen, plus it lets deepnest finally cut ties with hallownest, and we'll get to see The Wall truly shine here in a bit >:)
> 
> sorta setting up for the sequel of this story right now. idk how my stress-relief meme fic became my main focus, but eh, what can you do?
> 
> wasps Plan (TM) has been Thoroughly Fucked. once she finds that out, she's gonna give up on plans altogether. fucking freestylin' up in this bitch! :D
> 
> though abs rad is the main obstacle and ultimate goal in this fic, PK is the real antagonist. he's a bastard like that


	21. Tantabus: 1, Pale King: 0

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> bit of a shorter chappie, but writer's block is a bitch and i wanted to get something out for at least one of my stories 
> 
> have some tantabus! he's grown up into such a good little vindictive murder-bot :)
> 
> also more references yay! internet points to anyone who gets any of them, and even more to someone who can guess all of them!

Revek ran as fast as his legs could carry him as the tunnels of Deepnest came alive to eat him. Rabid wildlife crawled from damn-near every conceivable crack, eyes glowing not with that hellish orange blight, but a void filled with pinpricks of light.

Pure light, like the soothing silver of Soul, but it seemed cold and merciless shining out of the void-black pits of the creatures’ eyes.

Revek put all of his skills to good use in avoiding every slavering Dirtcarver and every Garpede with a laser inexplicably attached to its head. It wasn’t enough though. The very stones of the tunnels began to shake and shudder beneath his racing feet.

Lances of darkness and light shot from near-invisible crevices in the walls and ceilings. One clipped his leg and he tumbled to the floor, his Nail clattering away from him. He cried out in pain but tried to struggle to his feet.

The creatures pursuing him stopped their pursuit, though. They surrounded him, and from voiceless throats came a voice that would follow him into his deepest nightmares.

Their shrieks and hisses twisted until a facsimile of a voice was dragged from behind teeth and jaws not meant to speak.

“I AM TANTABUS, GUARDIAN OF DEEPNEST. YOU HAVE TRESPASSED AGAINST US. WHAT SAY YOU IN YOUR DEFENSE?”

Revek was terrified. The Pale King had paid him quite a hefty sum to try and infiltrate Deepnest to find out what was going on inside it, but no amount of money was worth this.

“I-I was j-just following o-orders!” He stuttered. A particularly large Garpede surged forward and pinned him to the ground, its snapping mandibles mere inches from his face. The laser on its head glowed ominously.

“WHOSE ORDERS?”

Revek didn’t even think of lying. He didn’t want to die here! Not like this!

“The Pale King! He sent me to investigate Deepnest! He’s planning to invade, he declared war! I’m just a mercenary he hired to do some reconnaissance! I’m no worshipper of his!”

The Garpede, as well as every other creature, stilled into veritable statues of themselves. A drop of saliva dripped from the Garpede’s mandibles onto Revek’s cheek and he would forever deny whimpering.

“WHAT.”

“I don’t know much, I swear! I just know that he wanted me to find out what kinds of defenses Deepnest had so he could plan his invasion better! He left the castle really suddenly for the day, and when he came back he immediately declared war on Deepnest, something about some kind of theft or coup attempt! I heard rumors he and his entourage headed towards Kingdom’s Edge, but that’s all I know, I swear!”

Everything was still, before the Garpede stepped off his chest and allowed him to get to his feet. Hemolymph ran down his thigh from the wound that had burned right through his shell.

“I MUST KNOW WHAT YOU KNOW. YOUR KNOWLEDGE WILL BE ASSIMILATED. RESISTANCE IS FUTILE.”

“Wha--”

The ground beneath his feet shook and tendrils of light-studded darkness rose from the stone. Revek tried to throw himself away from them, but they were too fast. They wound around his body, pinning his arms and legs.

His chitin creaked beneath the force and he screamed. One tendril lunged for his face and Revek knew no more.

* * *

Tantabus would have scowled if he had a face with which to perform the action. He settled for reviewing the information he’d brutally torn from the mind of the invader again.

Tantabus felt no remorse. He’d tried to drive off the invader non-lethally first, but the invader, once called Revek, had refused. He ignored the messages carved upon the rocks and slew the few creatures Tantabus had sent after him.

Revek had been swift, and Tantabus had quickly resorted to activating all the traps, save the Rim Protocol. Revek was but a single individual though, and most of the traps had been geared toward an invasion force taking the main, largest tunnels, not the back routes and cramped side streets used by Deepnest natives to sneak around.

Those tunnels didn’t have nearly as many traps or deterrents overall, and Tantabus was going to rectify that quickly, but Revek must have visited Deepnest in the past or once been friends with a native to have known about the hidden paths.

Over the past few weeks, Tantabus’s control over the wildlife had improved greatly, to the point he could puppet individuals to do his bidding and even figured out how to speak using them if he had a large enough swarm on hand.

He didn’t particularly like doing so, it reminded him too much of the Radiance, but he never harmed the beasts and let them go when he was done, none the worse for wear, unlike the Radiance.

He used his immense ability to multitask to use a swarm of controlled creatures to start constructing more magical and mundane traps before hooking them into The Wall’s systems.

He turned his attention to The Wall’s main console and started flashing an alert. Herrah came in minutes later to check on it, just as she’d always done.

Tantabus opened up a new section of programming he’d made to allow him to communicate more effectively with Deepnest as a whole. A little avatar of himself appeared hovering above the console, constructed out of Soul.

“Herrah, this is Tantabus, and I come bearing urgent news.”

“Tantabus, what do you have for me?” Herrah said, barely reacting to seeing Tantabus appear inside the security system. He’d communicated with her before as she slept, but this was much easier and came with less ambiguity.

“The Pale Worm has declared war on Deepnest and sent in a mercenary to spy on our defenses. I’ve already taken care of the problem after...interrogating him, let’s say, and I’ve got lots of news, and none of it’s good.”

“WHAT?! Tell me everything!”

“The mercenary was primarily an assassin who went by the name of Revek. I have neutralized the threat, but how exactly would you like me to deal with him? He lives, but only just. His mind shattered when I tore all the useful information from it. He may recover in time, he may not.”

“He didn’t make it very far into our borders, did he?”

“No. I am installing additional security measures as we speak. The Pale Worm intends to invade us soon. Revek did not know when exactly, but soon after he returned from his mission seems likely.”

“Do we know why the Pale Worm has decided that now is a good time to invade? His people are in the middle of suffering from the infection.”

“Though the Pale Worm does not strike me as a particularly adept leader, Revek knew of rumors saying that he’d left the castle very suddenly with four of the Five Great Knights on an urgent trip to Kingdom’s Edge and declared war almost immediately upon returning many hours later, claiming that Deepnest had betrayed Hallownest by harboring the Flawed Vessel and assisted it with the theft of an important magical artifact and attempting some kind of coup.”

“Kingdom’s Edge is the last known location of Wasp, and Hornet left days ago to go aid her. Did Revek know if either of them had been spotted or gods forbid, captured?” Herrah asked worriedly, her maternal instincts going nuts. This whole situation was a clusterfuck. 

“Unfortunately no, but it seems unlikely. If either of them had been captured, the Pale Worm would likely have either bragged about it or tried to use Hornet as a bargaining chip to ensure Deepnest’s surrender.”

“Yes, that makes sense, but what could have been stolen, and why would Wasp or Hornet have taken it? It must have been very important for the Wyrm to leave the comfort of his castle to go investigate himself.”

“I do not have any more idea than you do, but we must prepare for war regardless. I am already prepping the environmental defenses, but Deepnest’s warriors must be rallied by you. I shall see to it that enough of Wasp’s weapons are manufactured to arm every soldier with at least one. Protocol: The 300 is now in effect, as well as the Skynet Protocol. Do I have your authorization?”

“Yes. Protect the non-combatants and the Hidden Village. I lead from the front, but having a powerful ally to hold down the fort is invaluable. As for Revek, here’s what we’re going to do...”

Tantabus’s avatar nodded before deactivating. Lines of magical code and runes flew across the holographic screens.

Deepnest rumbled. Walls of stone and light rose from the ground while alarm klaxons blared throughout the village. Tantabus’s voice rang out from the Hidden Village all the way to the greenhouse farms in what used to be known as the Failed Tramway. Every spider and centipede in Deepnest heard the voice of their guardian.

“Attention citizens of Deepnest! This is Tantabus. The Pale King has declared war against Deepnest. All eligible warriors should report to the Armory for weapons and further instructions. All non-combatants are advised to stay indoors as much as possible, and be prepared to evacuate to the bunkers at a moment’s notice. 

If that time comes, take only what personal effects you can comfortably carry. Necessities will be provided for you there if evacuation becomes necessary. I shall do everything in my power to protect Deepnest and its citizens.  _ Simus invicti. _ We are the unconquered.”

Tantabus got to work spinning up the production facilities he’d been secretly constructing using the wildlife and the few automatons he’d created to help with the finer details. Hollownest’s brutish mining golems had nothing on Tantabus’s creations. In a fit of whimsy, he’d decided to call them ‘Shadows’ for they were sort of a mere shadow of himself. They carried out his will, and yet were not alive or aware in any way.

The secret facility woke up and began doing what it was created to do. Raw stone was fed into one side and the shells of weapons came out the other end. His Shadows took them and he channeled Soul through them to activate and add the finishing touches to the weapons.

He’d discovered the blueprints for the weapons stacked neatly away in crates, labelled ‘In case shit gets real’ and shit had indeed gotten very real, so Tantabus felt it was probably okay to bust the esoteric designs out.

They were each fascinating devices, really. Difficult to truly understand or design, but very simple to operate. You didn’t need to have the same levels of extensive training to utilize them like you would with a Nail or Needle or magic.

Everything in that crate was built for the express purpose of causing chaos and destruction. They were built for war, for causing devastation, for utterly crushing one’s enemies.

His mother had the strangest naming conventions sometimes, but he supposed he had to get it from somewhere.

‘Grenades’, ‘landmines’, ‘heavy artillery’, a very expansive category called ‘guns’, and a truly terrifying selection of weapons simply labelled ‘future war crimes’ all lay within the realms of possibility for Tantabus to manufacture. He got to work immediately. He had a war to win.

If he was capable of such, Tantabus would have been sporting a truly diabolical grin.

_ Though puppeting from such a distance is very taxing, it’ll be oh-so satisfying. _

* * *

“Sire! Revek has returned, but something’s wrong with him!” A messenger bug shouted, with two Kingsmolds holding the limp form of Revek between them.

“What is the matter? Revek, report! What are Deepnest’s defensive capabilities?” The Pale King demanded from atop his throne. Off to his left stood the fully-grown Pure Vessel.

The limp form of Revek spasmed and when he lifted his head, the Pale King felt his heart clench in fear. Revek’s eyes were Void-black, but filled with pinpricks of light, like the stars that could only be seen if one flew up above the omnipresent ash-clouds.

The tiny flinch the Pure Vessel made went unnoticed in all the excitement.

Revek jerked violently and laughed wetly, like he was halfway choking on something. Judging by the Void that dripped from his mouth, he probably was.

“Ahhh, Pale Worm, I’ve been looking forward to speaking with you!” Revek said, but his voice sounded wrong.

“Who am I speaking to?” The Pale King inquired. He hoped beyond hope this wasn’t another being like Radiance.

“Ah, you’re smarter than I gave you credit for, though I suppose it’s obvious I’m not Revek, so perhaps not…”

“Get on with it before I incinerate you!”

“Ah, ha...very funny. I am Tantabus, Guardian of the Sleeping. Fear not, I despise the moth bitch as much as you do. Revek is a special case. He dared go where he was not welcome, and he paid the price for his actions. I had to puppet him here or he never would have gotten back to you, what with how I shattered his pathetic mind like an antique vase. I’ve come to you to deliver a message.”

“And what would that be?”

“To invade Deepnest is to court chaos and flirt with destruction. I protect Deepnest and all those who dwell within. I am the shadows of every stone and shrub, I lurk behind the eyes of every bug and beast who calls Deepnest home. There is nowhere you can go within its borders that I will not find you. 

I warn you now, ruler of Hallownest, if you invade the territory I am sworn to defend, I will not rest until every soldier, every lifeless construct, every foreign god is dead at my feet. No bug nor beast nor being shall violate that place and live, I swear to you that, if nothing else.”

“Is that all?” The Pale King said, trying to goad Tantabus into revealing some kind of information.

“No, there is one more thing.”

“And that would be?”

“I bring a message directly from the mouth of Herrah the Beast. She says, and I quote, ‘Tell that pointy-headed halfwit to get fucked! Maybe then he’ll figure out how to do it properly and his wife won’t be so disappointed all the time!’” Tantabus laughed.

The Pale King’s wings twitched in fury and embarrassment. Such matters were private, but he supposed Herrah wouldn’t shy away from an opportunity to insult him in such a way. The people of Deepnest were crude and vulgar, and Herrah was no exception.

He manifested a lance made of Soul and flung it at the laughing form of Tantabus’s puppeted body. It hit the body of Revek in the stomach, and his body bled Void instead of hemolymph.

More Void dribbled down Revek’s chin as the body collapsed to the floor, still laughing as it choked to death.

“Ha...ha…! Surprise...motherfucker!” Tantabus said breathlessly, before the body went limp.

The Pale King was confused and wary, but after nothing happened, he relaxed a bit. Perhaps Tantabus was referring to the whole incident, and not something else?

Then Revek’s body exploded into a shower of corrosive Void, destroying the two nearby kingsmolds and splattering small droplets across the Pale King’s robes and face.

He hissed in surprise and pain, quickly wiping the substance off his face and channeling Soul to heal the minor wounds.

There was a black-stained, smoking crater in the otherwise pristine floors of the White Palace.

No one noticed the Pure Vessel’s hands. They trembled ever-so-slightly. By the time the Pale King turned around, the Pure Vessel was still once more.

* * *

The Pure Vessel was not Nervous, because that was an Emotion and thus Against The Rules.

The body being controlled by the being known as Tantabus had a short, threatening conversation with the Pale King, but only the Pure Vessel heard the words it projected into its mind. It tried to block the foreign mind out, but Tantabus belonged at least partly to the Void, the same as it was, and so it heard the words loud and clear, even if it didn’t want to.

“Peace, my friend. I mean you no harm. I’ve come to tell you that you are not alone. Your sister, my mother, is hard at work. She travels the kingdom currently, to defeat the infection at its source. With any luck, you won’t be sealed within the temple. The Old Light is a blight upon the world, and her time is almost up. Stay strong, and help will arrive when the time is right. 

She loves you very much and she hopes to rescue you after the Old Light is destroyed. She wants you to come live with us in Deepnest when this is all over. If you ever feel unsafe or wish to escape, make your way to Deepnest. The defenses will let you pass unharmed, and you will be welcomed with open arms. Though she does not know if you will like the name, she calls you Ghost, and she loves you.

My time is almost up here, but remember, you are loved and cared for. You have a family, a _real_ family, waiting for you, whenever you are ready to join us. Farewell, Ghost. Stay strong.”

The connection cut off abruptly, and seconds later, the fallen body of Revek exploded into Void. Small droplets landed on the Pale King and itself, but where the Pale King’s shell smoked and burned away, the Pure Vessel’s was unharmed.

Almost against its will, its body absorbed the minuscule amount of Void on its shell, and in the deepest, most closely guarded parts of its mind, the part that decided to call itself Ghost, swore it could feel the echoes of what must have been love in those tiny droplets of Void.

If it had been capable of such things, it might have cried, but it Was Pure, and so it didn’t.

It Ignored the way its Void trembled with something it could not identify.

The part of it that knew itself to be Ghost knew exactly what that feeling was. 

It Ignored that too, but now it was so much harder.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> soooo...that happened. tantabus being a scary ultron-esque motherfucker, but in a good way! wasp really should lock her shit up more securely if she didn't want people to go snooping through her stuff! Wasp was a gun-nut with a military dad, remember? she knows a shit ton about how guns and other weapons work, and a ton of BS magic knowledge to draw on.
> 
> herrah totally told PK he sucks in bed, lol
> 
> also poor ghost, they so conflicted rn.
> 
> the mantis village arc is just kicking my ass currently, it does not wanna cooperate. i can't decide if i want wasp and hornet to just rush in guns blazing yelling FITE ME, BITCHES! or if i wanna have them stealth their way in and have a convo with the mantis lords (all four of them) first, and i dunno how imma handle traitor lord's daughter at all either way...send help plz, author is drowning :,)


End file.
